Two Continents Named for One Man

Is a Wired link sufficient credit for the article you've appropriated? I get the Wired newsfeed and don't really need redundant posts like this.

I love all these old maps. You have to wonder though how much the cartographers believed in the accuracy of their own maps, and how much of it they just considered "guidelines". There's a total lack of consistency between them, but each displays a unique pattern to that individual's perception of the world they lived on. I also find it amusing that people knew back then the Earth was round, but today we still have the Flat-Earth society who would rather stay clinging to the idea it isn't.

BJN, the purpose of this item (and many others here) is to invite people to go read the whole thing at Wired.

The Flat Earth Society bases their science on the clear word of the Bible, and no evidence to the contrary can be entertained or perhaps even understood. Just like creationists and evolution.

Did the Vikings realize the New World wasn't Asia?

"Did the Vikings realize the New World wasn't Asia?"

Excellent question! If I remember correctly, they did not think of the New World as Asia, just more land that they happened across.

b83

Probably. Trade routes between Europe and East Asia were well established 2,000 years ago. Viking raids went as far as Persia (see map in link below) and goods and stores from the farthest portions of the East no doubt reached them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Viking_Expansion.svg

As far as mistaking the Americas for Asia... remember, most scholars knew the Earth was round, and knew that Columbus' math about the size of the Earth was wrong (he underestimated it severely). They debated whether a vast ocean lay between Asia and Europe, and some hypothesized a continent must be there 'to balance out the rest of the land'.

Columbus returned from the first voyage in 1493, and in 1507 (1 year after Columbus' death), Waldseemuller named the land mass "America". So if some Europeans believed Columbus landed in Asia, they didn't believe it for very long....

(my point about mistaking the Americas for Asia was that it was a brief mistake of some Europeans, and so probably not something the Vikings encountered)

This is not actually the origin of our country's name, though it is the most common misconception.

Pick up "The Book of General Ignorance" and learn the truth, about this and many other things.

ie:
What is Atlas holding on his shoulders? Nope, not the earth.

info stolen from wikipedia"

" The origin of the name "America" comes from the Welshman Richard Amerike. The reason it doesn't seem plausible that Amerigo Vespucci is that it if people had places named after them, it would be their surname, rather than their forename that was used. For example, Magellan Straits (Ferdinand Magellan) and Tasmania. (Abel Tasman)"

The full paragraph from wikipedia:

An alternate proposal, first advanced by Jules Marcou in 1875 and later recounted by novelist Jan Carew, is that the name America derives from the district of Amerrique in Nicaragua.[27] The gold-rich district of Amerrique was purportedly visited by both Vespucci and Columbus, for whom the name became synonymous with gold. Another theory, first proposed by a Bristol antiquary and naturalist, Alfred Hudd, in 1908 was that America is derived from Richard Amerike (Richard ap Meurig), a Bristol merchant of Welsh descent, who is believed to have financed John Cabot's voyage of discovery from England to Newfoundland in 1497.[

Ok, I know this will sound like trolling, but I really want to know this: in south America, it is assumed that "America" is the whole continent, while "south America" is... well, the south part of America. The title of this post, however, implies that "North America" and "South America" are two different continents, which just happen to share a common part in the name. Since it is not the first time I read something like this, I wonder: do people in north America really believe that north and south America are different continents? Or is just a poorly phrased title? And where would Mexico be (I always thought that region was "central America")?

In the US, we are taught that North America and South America are two different continents. Central America is the southern portion of North America, but not a separate continent. We are taught there are seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia (which includes New Zealand, Australia the country, and some islands), and Antarctica.

How many continents does the rest of the world count?

Also: the five Olympic rings stand for the continents, but North and South America are combined and Antarctica is left off.

I heard once from a teacher that "some people" (don't ask me who - citation needed) considered Europe and Asia a single continent called "Eurasia".
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? :)

In the world history class I took in 10th grade, the teacher put us through a thought exercise on defining what should count as a continent, since obviously they aren't discrete land masses or even necessarily cultures. If so, "Afreurasia" [or something] would be even more accurate than Eurasia, since Africa is actually connected to that whole chunk.

As they said in America: The Book: "There was a 50/50 chance we would have been named The United States of Vespucci".