USA,,, IS the best the world has seen yet..
2007-04-06 09:53:06 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Amerigo Vespucci is the correct answer, but some of the details offered so far are a bit off.
Amerigo Vespucci sailed on at least two expeditions to South America, exploring much of its east coast. On his voyage of 1501-2 he concluded that this was NOT (as Columbus thought until his death) part of Asia, but a NEW part of the world. He was the first to recognize this.
More important for his subsequent fame, Vespucci wrote two letters to a friend in Europe, telling of his journey and conclusions These letters, with their descriptions of the lives and believes of South American natives became very popular all across Europe (unlike Columus's diaries).
In 1507 a German clergyman-scholar named Martin Waldseemüller was working on a contemporary world map. He had read of Vespucci's travels and knew about "the New World". In honor of Vespucci's "discovery" (recognition) of thies new "fourth paft" of the world, Waldseemüller printed his wood block map with the name "America" spread across the southern continent of the New World. He sold a thousand copies of the map across Europe.
It is said the map maker later changed his mind, but in any case it was too late. The name had spread too far.
http://geography.about.com/cs/historicalgeog/a/amerigo.htm
2007-04-06 12:01:55 · answer #1 · answered by bruhaha 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
America is named after the Italian mapmaker Amerigo Vespucci in the early 1500's
2007-04-06 13:00:56 · answer #2 · answered by Dave aka Spider Monkey 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why isn't it the U.S. of Columbus?
Well, Amerigo Vespucci was an explorer of the America's, arriving 2 years after Columbus. He made two trips and explored some of the Carribean and a bit of South America, and brought back maps. Credit was mistakenly given to him, and Columbus "missed the boat" so to speak.
2007-04-06 09:57:34 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Amerigo Vespucci was an explorer that we named America after.
2007-04-06 09:56:20 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
The document from Amerigo was found to be forged in the 1800's, this was the one that described his many explorations that were used on the early maps and caused his name to be associated with the new world. It really was a mistake.
2007-04-06 09:57:02 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Martin Waldsemuner(or however the crap you spell his name.) made world maps and used Amerigo Vespucci's maps of the new world. He named it AMERICA in the 14th century. It makes me wonder why he hadn't named it Vespuccia. Wouldn't that be weird?
2007-04-06 10:04:13 · answer #6 · answered by Jenna L 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋