“Tuesday, September 20, 1519.” Their return to Spain, he noted, was on “Saturday, September 6,” but the Spaniards ashore shook their heads, insisting that it was Sunday, September 7. Don Antonio checked with Albo, who, on Magellan’s instructions, had also kept a record in his ship’s log. Albo agreed. Clearly all Spain could not be wrong about so simple a fact, so they were left with a dilemma: Somehow the flota had dropped twenty-four hours out of the calendar. They had just proved that the world was a sphere, but they were not yet thinking spherically.
