He made waves in the national media and became known for cheerfully insisting the rest of the world was being duped by scientists, Douglas Martin wrote in Johnson’s obituary for the New York Times in 2001. Johnson’s good friend Samuel Shenton founded a small fringe group dubbed the Flat Earth Society in the 1950s. In 1972 Johnson became the president of the society after Shenton's death, transforming the group from a small collection of conspiracy theorists into an organization with thousands of members. Back in the 1970s and ‘80s, a man named Charles Kenneth Johnson became a minor celebrity for his refusal to believe the Earth is round, Cheryl Eddy writes for iO9.

But this wasn't the first resurgance of the idea.

So many were surprised to hear the flat Earth concept still kicked around. People have known that the Earth is round since at least the sixth century B.C.E. Since then, the rapper has drawn the ire of all sorts of incredulous people, including astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. took to Twitter and proclaimed that the Earth is flat. This week, a particularly odd little bit of pseudoscience reared its head again when rapper B.o.B.

Flat earth discord