America

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America the Story of Amerigo Vespucci
Created by Robert Martinez Primary Content by Joy
Hakim, A History of US, The First
Americans Images as cited.
http//www.theposter.com/media/B_2540_AMERIGO_VESP
UCCI.jpg
http//content.answers.com/main/content/img/webpic
s/Amerigo_Vespucci.jpg
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• Christopher Columbus did all the discovering,
  yet it was Amerigo whose name got put on the
  land. History isnt always fair.

http//www.education.mcgill.ca/EDEE-382B-01/mccaig
/project/newworld.jpg
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• Now Amerigo was an adventurer just like
  Columbus. He made several trips across the ocean
  and went way down the coast of South America.

http//www.oppisworld.de/philo/vespucci.html
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• But what made him famous was that he wrote
  about his trips. His letters were so fascinating
  that everyone wanted to read them. And, thanks to
  Gutenbergs printing press, many people did.

http//www.flickr.com/photos/cleanandsolid/2789081
514/
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• Amerigo Vespucci did something else that was
  important. He understood that there was a huge
  continent over here, a continent new to
  Europeans, and he said so in his writings. He
  called it a New World. Remember, Columbus
  thought he had discovered a shortcut to India.

http//www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/exp
lorers/americus-vespucius.jpg
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• Vespucci was a practical businessman whose
  hobbies were mathematics, sailing, and reading.
  While Columbus was dreaming of his shortcut to
  China, Vespucci looked at the land of South
  America with an open mind.

http//www.calstatela.edu/faculty/eviau/edit557/ve
spucci/dan/V's202amp320voyIllustrated.gif
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• In those southern parts, he wrote, I have
  found a continent more densely peopled and
  abounding in animals than our Europe or Asia or
  Africa. He could see that it was a vast
  continent and that it wasnt China.

http//www.flickr.com/photos/thejourney1972/338627
0644/
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• A man named Martin Waldseemuller actually
  named America. He was a printer and mapmaker who
  was fascinated by Vespuciouss letters.

http//www.mgar.net/images2/wald.jpg
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• He said, Americus Vespucius has first related
  without exaggeration of a people living toward
  the south, almost under the antarctic (sic)
  pole..

http//www.indiana.edu/r317doc/dr/gif/taino.jpg
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• They go around entirely naked, and not only
  offer to their king the heads of their enemies
  who they have killed, but also feed eagerly on
  the flesh of the conquered foes.

http//schools.nyc.gov/Offices/District75/default.
htm
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• You can see why these reading were so
  interesting to people at the time. In 1507
  Waldseemuller printed a huge world map, and on it
  he put a new continent.

http//www.aerenlund.dk/helte/images/waldseemuller
_map.jpg
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• Waldseemuller used information from the
  voyages of Columbus and Vespucci to make the map.
  He decided to put the name America on the
  southern continent, since Amerigo had written
  about it.

http//images.publicradio.org/content/2007/10/01/2
0071001_america_2.jpg
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• His map was the most up-to-date and reliable
  one around. Many people bought it. Six years
  later Waldseemuller made a new map. This time he
  didnt think it was such a good idea to call the
  new land America.He left the name off.

http//www.waidev2.com/php/IMAGES/HC_TV_Program_In
fo/2065---Image.jpg
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• .but it was too late. People were already
  using it, and it stuck. Amazing, isnt it, how
  fickle history can be?

http//a1259.g.akamai.net/f/1259/5586/5d/images.ar
t.com/images/-/Americas-Map-with-Palms--C11790225.
jpeg