what were the names for the north what was the country of the south called during civil war

The first was that Columbus was under the mistaken impression that he had found a new route to Asia and was not aware that America was an entirely new continent. In 1538, The famous geographer Gerard Mercator chose to name the entire north and south parts of America as one large “America” for the entire western hemisphere.Ĭhristopher Columbus might well have had the new world named after him, had it not been for two shortcomings. When North America was later added, the mapmakers of the time retained the original name. Waldseemüller used Vespucci’s travelogues as a reference for his drawing and so his map had South America as the only part of this new western hemisphere. When the large new map, approximately 8 feet by 4 feet, was unveiled by Waldseemüller, it had the large title “AMERICA” across what is now present day Brazil. As such, they mistakenly thought Vespucci was the first to discover this new land and so named it after him, stating:īut now these parts (Europe, Asia and Africa, the three continents of the Ptolemaic geography) have been extensively explored and a fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespuccius (the Latin form of Vespucci’s name), I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part after Americus, who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence, and so to name it Amerige, that is, the Land of Americus, or America: since both Europa and Asia got their names from women. He and two scholarly partners were aware of Vespucci’s writings and were ignorant of Columbus’s expeditions.

In 1507, a German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller, chose to make a new map that included the new world. Being both entertaining and educational, his accounts of the new world were reprinted in almost every European language. Vespucci chose to write about his travels and his books were published in 15. Being a well educated man, he realized that this new world was not part of Asia, as some had initially thought. Vespucci was a navigator that traveled to “the new world” in 14.

However, the story behind why this is the case is somewhat more interesting and quite a bit less well known. Like most, I’ve known that the Americas were named after Amerigo Vespucci since my early education. Today I found out how the Americas got their name.

What were the names for the north what was the country of the south called during civil war