Hello! Let me tell you a story of two men who went to Peru just to measure a bunch of land to check out a bulge on a giant rock named Earth.

Why did they do this? I don’t know.

But is it funny? Yes. It’s also content for a future YouTube video, so that’s nice.

So, let’s start.

Some mathematician called Pierre Bouguer, a soldier with a long name called Charles Marie de La Condamine and some random scientists and adventurers who decided to tag along were the crew of this expedition.

They wanted to measure a long line that went for about 200 miles or something, and that would tell them all they wanted to know about the shape of their rock.

They went to this place called Quito and somehow angered all the people who lived there. They got chased by a mob armed with stones to throw.

This is where the unfortunate events start.

Now, let’s just rapid-fire some of these: doctor was murdered, botanist went mad, some people died of fevers, an old man ran off with a young girl, they had to stop for 8 months when the Condamine guy rode over to Lima to sort out a problem involving permits, Pierre and Condamine decided not to work together, such and such.

Everywhere the party went, they were greeted by people calling them sus, because why would some French guys travel halfway across Earth just to measure it?

Shortly before they ended the project, word reached them that ANOTHER team of French guys already checked out the bulge, and yep, it wasn’t round.

The team spent almost a decade trying to find answers just to learn that the answers weren’t what they were hoping for, and they weren’t even the first to find it.

What a disappointment.