Today everybody knows the Earth is a sphere. However, this idea was generally accepted only around five hundred years ago.
For a person standing on the Earth surface, it was easy to imagine that the earth was flat. It seemed that the Sum, stars and other planets orbited the Earth. People had this idea for a very long time.
However, in 1520, Magellan and Elcano sailed around the world in their ships. They proved, without doubt, that the Earht is a sphere.
Source: Essential Science 4. Ed. Santillana