AFAIK, they did invent the modern flat-Earthism. Europe designed a straw-men to use as racist propaganda to say the people on their colonies are stupid, but it was a group at the US that said "yes, that's us, and we are proud of it!"

Antivax was invented everywhere, again and again, so,maybe they get a half point for it too.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

In the modern era, the pseudoscientific belief in a flat Earth originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham with the 1849 pamphlet Zetetic Astronomy. Lady Elizabeth Blount established the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893, which published journals. In 1956, Samuel Shenton set up the International Flat Earth Research Society, better known as the "Flat Earth Society" from Dover, England, as a direct descendant of the Universal Zetetic Society.