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usonian

(22,000 posts)
2. America is named for an Italian.
Wed Oct 29, 2025, 09:58 PM
Wednesday
https://www-zdf-de.translate.goog/video/dokus/terra-x-112/der-mann-der-amerika-seinen-namen-gab-amerigo-vespucci-doku-100?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

Translated from German (it's the shortest article I could find)

Accountant and merchant for the Medici


Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), the son of a Florentine patrician, worked for the powerful Medici family as an accountant and merchant. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici sent Vespucci to Seville to oversee the affairs of the Spanish settlement.

There, the 40-year-old met his compatriot, Columbus. Commissioned by the Spanish crown, the Genoese explorer planned to reach the fabulously rich spice-producing lands of Asia via the western route in 1492. What Europe would later celebrate as the greatest discovery in human history, however, turned into a business disaster. Columbus brought back no treasures. Instead, he accumulated debts to his investors. And until his death, the navigator remained convinced that he had found India by sailing west.
Travelogue as a bestseller

Only after these voyages of discovery would Vespucci's moment arrive: With several expeditions aimed at finally finding riches, he set off westward. Vespucci reached the coastal regions of Guyana and the vast Amazon Delta. The Florentine also explored the Brazilian coast far to the south.

His travelogue "Mundus Novus" – "New World" – from 1502 became a repeatedly reprinted bestseller. Vespucci presented a sensation: there in the west lay not India, but a vast, previously unknown continent, densely populated by people and teeming with exotic animals and plants. It was this travelogue that prompted the Alsatian cartographer Waldseemüller to name the continent, previously unknown in Europe, "America" ​​on his world map – after "Amerigo." Vespucci was never aware of this.

Recommendations

3 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Bigot in home depot "this is my country" [View all] BlueWaveNeverEnd Wednesday OP
She's just an asshole. Diamond_Dog Wednesday #1
America is named for an Italian. usonian Wednesday #2
I fucking hate people like that ****. FoxNewsSucks Wednesday #3
Nothing ticks me off like that kind of hatred. I'm in South, so I stay ticked off. Silent Type Wednesday #4
Lol... BlueWaveNeverEnd Wednesday #7
Spanish was spoken in America before English. Ziggysmom Wednesday #5
Good one! Norrrm Wednesday #8
This message was self-deleted by its author Jack Valentino Wednesday #6
Begone, witch! Bayard Yesterday #9
Point at her and say BidenRocks Yesterday #10
Home Depot. Boomerproud Yesterday #11
My mother is full blooded Iroquois (adopted by an Italian family since out of wedlock children were verbotem in 1952) AZLD4Candidate Yesterday #12
THIS malaise Yesterday #13
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