If explorer Amerigo Vespucci were alive, he'd be 556 years old today. Born on March 9th, 1454, Vespucci was neither the first European to reach the New World nor the first to take back news of it, but he was the first to realize that the western hemisphere was not part of Asia or any part of the world known to Europeans. Vespucci's discovery coincided with the rise of the printing press, which made world maps available to more than a few people.
And that is precisely why many of us live in America instead of Christopha or Columbia. Link
Martin Waldseemüller, a modernist-humanist German clergyman and cartographer, reprinted “The Four Voyages of Amerigo” in 1507 with his own “Cosmographic Introduction.” He opined:
I see no reason why anyone should justly object to calling this part … America, after Amerigo [Vespucci], its discoverer, a man of great ability.
Waldseemüller included a map of the the new lands, on which the name “America” makes its earliest appearance.
The map was popular. The name caught on, and it stuck.
And it spread. America was first used as a name for only the southern continent of the New World, but Gerardus Mercator’s 1538 world map included both North America and South America.
And that is precisely why many of us live in America instead of Christopha or Columbia. Link
I alredy knew that not even the U.N. knows how many countries exist, but it seems there isn't even an agreement on the number of continents... At least we agree on the Moon being a satellite and not a planet, right? :)
How many continents does the rest of the world count?