[bvw]

The earth is locally flat and globally round. Like any large sphere small trips around any point are measured flatwise. The kind of trips men on foot, or even horse-drawn wagons make. Thus to everyday people in everyday life for all practical purposes the earth is flat. And that is still true in our day. Local maps and atlases for example are laid out as if the earth is flat.

Scholars and knowledgable have been aware coginizant of the spherical nature of the earth since pre-history.

[Junior]

Not since pre-history, but at least from classical times. I've come across comments the ancient Egyptians knew the shape of the Earth, but I have yet to find any substantiation for it. Pythagoras may have determined the shape of the Earth from the shadow it cast on the Moon during a lunar eclipse (which would put knowledge the Earth was a sphere as early as the fifth or sixth century B.C.).