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Amerigo Vespucci named America by mistake | OpenMind

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Several names of the United States of America are in common use. Formal alternatives to the full name include the “United States”, “America”, as well as the initialisms “U.S.” and the “U.S.A.”; colloquial names include “the States” and the “U.S. of A.”

It is generally accepted that the name “America” derives from the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The term dates back to 1507, when it appeared on a world map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, in honor of Vespucci. The full name “United States of America” was first used during the American Revolutionary War, though its precise origin is a matter of contention.[1] The newly formed union was first known as the “United Colonies”, and the earliest known usage of the modern full name dates from a January 2, 1776 letter written between two military officers. The Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson, and the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, both contain the name “United States of America.” The name was officially adopted by the second Continental Congress on September 9, 1776.

Etymology[edit]

America[edit]

The earliest known use of the name “America” dates to 1505, when German poet Matthias Ringmann used it in a poem about the New World.[2] The word is a Latinized form of the first name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass, rather than the eastern limit of Asia.[3][4][5] On April 25, 1507, the map Universalis Cosmographia, created by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, was published alongside this poem.[2][5] The map uses the label “America” for what is now known as South America. In 1538, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator used the name “America” on his own world map, applying it to the entire Western Hemisphere.[6]

Alternative theories suggest that “America” derives from the Amerrisque Mountains of Nicaragua,[7] or from the surname of wealthy Anglo-Welsh merchant Richard Amerike.[8]

United States of America[edit]

The first documentary evidence of the phrase “United States of America” dates from a January 2, 1776, letter written by Stephen Moylan, Esquire, to George Washington‘s aide-de-camp Joseph Reed. Moylan was fulfilling Reed’s role during the latter’s absence.[1] Moylan expressed his wish to go “with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain” to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort.[1][9][10] The first known publication of the phrase “United States of America” was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776.[11] It is commonly mistaken that Thomas Paine coined the term in his pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, but he never used the final form.[1][a]

The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed no later than June 17, 1776, declared “The name of this Confederation shall be the ‘United States of America’.”[12] The final version of the Articles, sent to the states for ratification in late 1777, stated that “The Stile of this Confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America’.”[13] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” in all capitalized letters in the headline of his “original Rough draught”[b] of the Declaration of Independence. This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation.[12] In any case, the Declaration of Independence was the first official document to use the nation’s new title.[1]

History[edit]

In the early days of the American Revolution, the colonies as a unit were most commonly referred to as the “United Colonies“. For example, president of the Continental Congress Richard Henry Lee wrote in a June 7, 1776 resolution: “These United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, free and independent States.”[14] Before 1776, names for the colonies varied significantly; they included “Twelve United English Colonies of North America”, “United Colonies of North America”, and others.[15] On September 9, 1776, the Second Continental Congress officially changed the nation’s name to the “United States of America”.[14][16]

In the first few years of the United States, however, there remained some discrepancies of usage. In the Treaty of Alliance (1778) with France, the term “United States of North America” was used. In accordance with this usage, when the Congress was drawing bills of exchange for French commissioners on May 19, 1778, they decided to use this term.[17] President of the Continental Congress Henry Laurens even wrote that “Congress have adopted the Stile of the Treaties of Paris, ‘the United States of North America’.” Congress, however, reconsidered this change on July 11, 1778 and resolved to drop “North” from the bills of exchange, making them consistent with the name adopted in 1776.[15][18]

Since the Articles of Confederation, the concept of a Perpetual Union between the states has existed, and “Union” has become synonymous with “United States”.[19] This usage was especially prevalent during the Civil War, when it referred specifically to the loyalist northern states which remained part of the federal union.[20]

The term “America” was seldom used in the United States before the 1890s, and rarely used by presidents before Theodore Roosevelt. It does not appear in patriotic songs composed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including “The Star-Spangled Banner“, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee“, and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic“, although it is common in 20th-century songs like “God Bless America“.[21] The name “Columbia“, popular in American poetry and songs of the late 18th century, derives its origin from Christopher Columbus. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the District of Columbia.[22]

Circa 1810, the term Uncle Sam was “a cant term in the army for the United States,” according to a 1810 edition Niles’ Weekly Register.[23] Uncle Sam is now known as a national personification of the United States.

Usage as a singular noun[edit]

The headline of Foster’s column

The phrase “United States” was originally plural, a description of a collection of independent states—e.g., “the United States are”—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865.[24][25] The singular form became popular after the end of the Civil War, and is now standard.[26] However, the plural form is retained in the idiom “these United States”.[27] The difference is more significant than usage; it is a difference between a collection of states and a unit.[26]

The transition from plural to singular was gradual.[25] In a May 4, 1901, column in the New York Times titled “ARE OR IS? Whether a Plural or Singular Verb Goes With the Words United States”, former Secretary of State John W. Foster noted that early statesmen such as Alexander Hamilton and Daniel Webster had used the singular form, as well as the Treaty of Paris (1898) and Hay–Pauncefote Treaty of 1900; conversely, most Supreme Court decisions still used the plural form. He concludes that “since the civil war the tendency has been towards [singular] use.”[28]Mark Liberman of the University of Pennsylvania found that, in the corpus of Supreme Court opinions, the transition to singular usage occurred in the early 1900s.[29] Among English-language books, the transition happened earlier, around 1880.[30]

Usage[edit]

The name “United States” is unambiguous; “United States of America” may be used in titles or when extra formality is desired. However, “United States” and “U.S.” may be used adjectivally, while the full name cannot.[31] English usage of “America” rarely refers to topics unrelated to the United States, despite the usage of “Americas” as the totality of North and South America.[32] Colloquial names include the “U.S. of A.” and, internationally, “the States”. Even more informal names include “Murica” and “Merica”, which imply a jocular and sometimes derogatory tone; these names come from stereotypical white southerners’ pronunciation of the word.[33]

The official U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual prescribes specific usages for “U.S.” and “United States”. In treaties, congressional bills, etc.,[c] “United States” is always used. In a sentence containing the name of another country, “United States” must be used. Otherwise, “U.S.” is used preceding a government organization or as an adjective, but “United States” is used as an adjective preceding non-governmental organizations (e.g. United States Steel Corporation).[34]

Style guides conflict over how various names for the United States should be used. The Chicago Manual of Style, until the 17th edition, required “US” and “U.S.” to be used as an adjective; it now permits the usage of both as a noun,[35][36] though “United States” is still preferred in this case.[37] The Associated Press Stylebook permits the usage of “US” and “U.S.” as both adjectives and nouns, though “US” (without the periods) is only allowed in headlines. APA Style, in contrast, only allows “U.S.” to be used as an adjective, and disallows “US”.[38]

Other languages[edit]

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In Spanish, the U.S. is known as Estados Unidos, literally “United States.” The Americas are known simply as América.[39] Spanish uses estadounidense and americano for the adjectival form, with the latter being mostly proscribed.[40][41] In Chinese, the U.S. is known as 美国 (pinyin: měiguó). Literally “beautiful country,” it in fact comes from the second character of the transliteration of America as “亚美利加” (pinyin: yàměilìjiā). The Americas are known as 美洲 (pinyin: měizhōu), with the same etymology.[42] In Japanese, the U.S. is known as アメリカ (Hepburn: amerika) and 米国 (Hepburn: beikoku), borrowing from Chinese. In Hindi, the U.S. is transliterated to अमेरिका (amerika).[43] In Esperanto, the United States of America is known as “Usono”, borrowing from English Usonia. In Burmese, the United States of America is known as အမေရိကန်ပြည်ထောင်စု (amerikan pyedaungsu), literally “American Union.”[44] In Kannada, the United States is known as “ಅಮೇರಿಕ ಸಂಯುಕ್ತ ಸಂಸ್ಥಾನ”, literally “America’s Union of States.”[45]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Paine used the terms “United Colonies”, “American states”, and “FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA”, but never “United States of America”.[1]
  2. ^ “Draught” is the British spelling of “draft”.
  3. ^ The full list is: “formal writing (treaties,
    Executive orders, proclamations, etc.); congressional bills; legal citations and courtwork; and covers and title pages.”[34]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f DeLear, Byron (July 4, 2013) Who coined ‘United States of America’? Mystery might have intriguing answer.
  2. ^ a b Laubenberger, Franz; Rowan, Steven (1982). “The Naming of America”. Sixteenth Century Journal. 13 (4): 92. doi:10.2307/2540012. JSTOR 2540012.
  3. ^ Sider, Sandra (2007). Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-19-533084-7.
  4. ^ Szalay, Jessie (September 20, 2017). “Amerigo Vespucci: Facts, Biography & Naming of America”. Live Science. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Allen, Erin (4 July 2016). “How Did America Get Its Name?”. Library of Congress Blog. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  6. ^ Jonathan Cohen. “The Naming of America: Fragments We’ve Shored Against Ourselves”. Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  7. ^ Rea, Joy (February 1964). “On the Naming of America”. American Speech. 39 (1): 42–50. doi:10.2307/453925. JSTOR 453925.
  8. ^ Macdonald, Peter (17 February 2011). “BBC History in Depth; The Naming of America; Richard Amerike”. BBC. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  9. ^ Touba, Mariam (November 5, 2014) Who Coined the Phrase ‘United States of America’? You May Never Guess “Here, on January 2, 1776… Stephen Moylan, an acting secretary to General George Washington, spells it out, ‘I should like vastly to go with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain’ to seek foreign assistance for the cause.” New-York Historical Society Museum & Library
  10. ^ Fay, John (July 15, 2016) The forgotten Irishman who named the ‘United States of America’ “According to the NY Historical Society, Stephen Moylan was the man responsible for the earliest documented use of the phrase ‘United States of America’.” IrishCentral.com
  11. ^ ““To the inhabitants of Virginia”, by A PLANTER. Dixon and Hunter’s. April 6, 1776, Williamsburg, Virginia. Letter is also included in Peter Force’s American Archives“. The Virginia Gazette. Vol. 5, no. 1287. Archived from the original on December 19, 2014.
  12. ^ a b Safire, William (2003). No Uncertain Terms: More Writing from the Popular “On Language” Column in The New York Times Magazine. Simon and Schuster. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-7432-4955-3.
  13. ^ Mostert, Mary (2005). The Threat of Anarchy Leads to the Constitution of the United States. CTR Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9753851-4-2.
  14. ^ a b Glass, Andrew (September 9, 2014). “Continental Congress names the United States, Sept. 9, 1776”. Politico. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  15. ^ a b Burnett, Edmund C. (1925). “The Name “United States of America”“. The American Historical Review. 31 (1): 79–81. doi:10.2307/1904503. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1904503. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  16. ^ Adams, John (September 9, 1776). Autobiography of John Adams.
  17. ^ “A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875”. memory.loc.gov.
  18. ^ “A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875”. memory.loc.gov. Resolved, That the resolutions of Congress of the 19 May last, relative to bills of exchange… that the word ‘North,’ preceding the word ‘America,’ be omitted in the form of the bills…
  19. ^ “Articles of Confederation (1777)”. National Archives. 2021-04-09. Retrieved 2022-06-04.
  20. ^ Detweiler, Robert; Stampp, Kenneth M. (February 1981). “The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War”. The History Teacher. 14 (2): 276. doi:10.2307/493285. ISSN 0018-2745.
  21. ^ Historian Daniel Immerwahr, speaking on Becoming America – NPR Throughline Podcast
  22. ^ Brokenshire, Brad (1993). Washington State Place Names. Caxton Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-87004-562-2.
  23. ^ Niles’ Weekly Register. Vol. 7. Franklin Press, Baltimore. 1815. p. 187.
  24. ^ Greg, Percy (1892). History of the United States from the Foundation of Virginia to the Reconstruction of the Union. West, Johnston & Company. p. 276.
  25. ^ a b c Zimmer, Benjamin. “Language Log: Life in these, uh, this United States”. itre.cis.upenn.edu. Retrieved 3 September 2020. Indeed, not only does the Constitution consistently use the plural construct, but so do official texts in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War — as with the pronominal anaphora used in the 13th Amendment
  26. ^ a b G. H. Emerson, The Universalist Quarterly and General Review, Vol. 28 (January 1891), p. 49, quoted in[25]
  27. ^ Burt, Andrew (13 May 2013). “‘These United States’: How Obama’s Vocal Tic Reveals a Polarized America”. The Atlantic. Retrieved 7 September 2020.
  28. ^ Foster, John Watson (May 4, 1901). “ARE OR IS? Whether a Plural or a Singular Verb Goes With the Words United States”. p. 23. Retrieved 3 September 2020. Among statesmen who have used the singular form may be cited Hamiltion, Webster…. The decisions of the Supreme Court… rarely show the use of the singular…. in the peace treaty with Spain of 1898, the term… is uniformly treated in the singular…. The Hay-Paunce-fote canal treaty of 1900… also treats ‘United States’ as a singular noun.
  29. ^ Liberman, Mark. “When did the Supreme Court make us an ‘is’?”. Language Log. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  30. ^ Aiden, Erez; Michel, Jean-Baptiste (2014). Uncharted: big data as a lens on human culture. New York: Penguin. p. 4. ISBN 978-1594487453. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  31. ^ “Is USA A Noun Or Adjective?”. Dictionary.com. 9 March 2017.
  32. ^ Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). The Columbia guide to standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-06989-2.
  33. ^ “Murica”. Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
  34. ^ a b U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual. January 12, 2017. pp. 222–223. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  35. ^ “You Could Look it Up”. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  36. ^ “10.4”. The Chicago Manual of Style (Seventeenth ed.). Chicago. 2017. ISBN 978-0-226-28705-8. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  37. ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (Seventeenth ed.). Chicago. 2017. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  38. ^ “APA Abbreviations // Purdue Writing Lab”. Purdue Writing Lab. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  39. ^ “Spanish Translation of ‘America’“. Collins English-Spanish Dictionary. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  40. ^ “English Translation of “estadounidense” | Collins Spanish-English Dictionary”. www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  41. ^ ASALE, RAE-; RAE. “americano, americana | Diccionario de la lengua española”. «Diccionario de la lengua española» – Edición del Tricentenario (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  42. ^ 汉英词典 (A Chinese–English Dictionary). Beijing: 商务印书馆 (Commercial Press). 1981. p. 463.
  43. ^ Caturvedi, Mahendra (1970). A practical Hindi-English dictionary. Delhi: National Publishing House. p. 40. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  44. ^ “BurmeseTranslation of ‘America’“. MYORDBOK English-Burmese Dictionary. Retrieved 7 November 2020.
  45. ^ “ಅಮೇರಿಕ ಸಂಯುಕ್ತ ಸಂಸ್ಥಾನ”, ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ (in Kannada), 2020-01-22, retrieved 2021-05-07

FAQs

What was America’s original name?

The newly formed union was first known as the “United Colonies“, and the earliest known usage of the modern full name dates from a January 2, 1776 letter written between two military officers.

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What was the name of America before Christopher Columbus?

Before 1492, modern-day Mexico, most of Central America, and the southwestern United States comprised an area now known as Meso or Middle America.

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What is the origin word of America?

The name America was coined by Martin Waldseemüller from Americus Vespucius, the Latinized version of the name of Amerigo Vespucci (1454?1512), the Italian explorer who mapped South America’s east coast and the Caribbean Sea in the early 16th century.

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When was America first called?

German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller is credited with first using the name America in 1507 on a large 12-panel map based on traveling accounts of explorers of the New World, and in particular those of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

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What was America called in ancient times?

Mesoamerica, the Woodland Period, and Mississippian culture (2000 BCE ? 500 CE)

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What did they call America before?

Before that time, there was no name that collectively identified the Western Hemisphere. The earlier Spanish explorers referred to the area as the Indies believing, as did Columbus, that it was a part of eastern Asia.

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Who founded America?

Explorer Christopher Columbus (1451?1506) is known for his 1492 ‘discovery’ of the New World of the Americas on board his ship Santa Maria.

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Who gave America its name?

America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent.

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Who lived in the US first?

Up until the 1970s, these first Americans had a name: the Clovis peoples. They get their name from an ancient settlement discovered near Clovis, New Mexico, dated to over 11,000 years ago. And DNA suggests they are the direct ancestors of nearly 80 percent of all indigenous people in the Americas.

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Who was first in America?

In the 1970s, college students in archaeology such as myself learned that the first human beings to arrive in North America had come over a land bridge from Asia and Siberia approximately 13,000 to 13,500 years ago. These people, the first North Americans, were known collectively as Clovis people.

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Who really discovered America first?

Before Columbus

We know now that Columbus was among the last explorers to reach the Americas, not the first. Five hundred years before Columbus, a daring band of Vikings led by Leif Eriksson set foot in North America and established a settlement.

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What was US called before 1776?

On September 9, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declares the name of the new nation to be the ?United States? of America. This replaced the term ?United Colonies,? which had been in general use.

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The LOC.GOV Wise Guide : How Did America Get Its Name?

How Did America Get Its Name? The Library of Congress recently completed the purchase of the only known extant copy of this map for $10 million, thanks to the generosity of the U.S. Congress, Discovery Channel, Gerald Lenfest, David Koch and several other donors. For more than 350 years the map was housed in a 16th century castle in Wolfegg, in southern Germany. The introduction to Waldseemüller’s “Cosmographie” is in the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division. This extremely rare work contains the first suggestion that the area of Columbus’ discovery be named “America” in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, who recognized that a “New World,” the so-called fourth part of the world, had been reached through Columbus’ voyage. Before that time, there was no name that collectively identified the Western Hemisphere. The earlier Spanish explorers referred to the area as the Indies believing, as did Columbus, that it was a part of eastern Asia. The Vespucci Family Papers are housed in the Library’s Manuscript Division. The Waldseemüller map opens the new Library exhibition “Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America.” It is one of the treasures of the Library and of the Geography and Map Division, which has more than 4.6 million cartographic items in its collections. Many of these items are online in American Memory, the Library’s Web site of more than 120 thematic collections ranging from the papers of U.S. presidents, civil rights leaders and suffragists to early motion pictures, sound recordings, photographs and baseball cards. A. Waldseemüller, [Map of the World Naming “America,” 1507. Geography and Map Division B. [Portrait of Amerigo Vespucci], Reproduction of anonymous painting. [No date found on item.] Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction No.: LC-USZ62-63115

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How Did America Get Its Name? – Library of Congress Blogs

How Did America Get Its Name? Today, America celebrates its independence. Our founding fathers drafted and adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring America’s freedom from Great Britain and setting in motion universal human rights. While the colonies may have established it, “America” was given a name long before. America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent. A map created in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller was the first to depict this new continent with the name “America,” a Latinized version of “Amerigo.” “America” is identified in the top portion of this segment of the 1507 Waldseemüller map. Geography and Map Division. A crown jewel in the Library’s cartographic collections is the map, also known as “America’s Birth Certificate.” While the map has been much publicized since it was acquired in 2003, it’s worthy of exploration today of all days. The map grew out of an ambitious project in St. Dié, France, in the early years of the 16th century, to update geographic knowledge flowing from the new discoveries of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort. He included on the map data gathered by Vespucci during his voyages of 1501-1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller named the new lands “America” on his 1507 map in the recognition of Vespucci’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered following Columbus’ and subsequent voyages in the late 15th century. An edition of 1,000 copies of the large wood-cut print was reportedly printed and sold, but no other copy is known to have survived. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map reflected a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing mankind’s understanding and perception of the world itself. For more than 350 years the map was housed in a 16th-century castle in Wolfegg, in southern Germany. The introduction to Waldseemüller’s “Cosmographie” actually contains the first suggestion that the area of Columbus’ discovery be named “America” in honor of Vespucci, who recognized that a “New World,” the so-called fourth part of the world, had been reached through Columbus’ voyage. Before that time, there was no name that collectively identified the Western Hemisphere. The earlier Spanish explorers referred to the area as the Indies believing, as did Columbus, that it was a part of eastern Asia. The Library has plenty of other resources on Waldseemüller and the map, including videos and a pretty cool story regarding the institution’s partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in building a hermetically sealed case for the priceless map. You can also read about the project on the NIST site.

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Naming of the Americas – Wikipedia

Naming of the Americas The naming of the Americas, or America, occurred shortly after Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492. It is generally accepted that the name derives from Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer, who explored the new continents in the following years on behalf of Spain and Portugal. However, some have suggested other explanations, including being named after a mountain range in Nicaragua, or after Richard Amerike of Bristol. Usage[edit] In modern English, North and South America are generally considered separate continents, and taken together are called the Americas in the plural, parallel to similar situations such as the Carolinas and the Dakotas. When conceived as a unitary continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a clarifying context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America.[1] Historically, in the English-speaking world, the term America used to refer to a single continent until the 1950s (as in Van Loon’s Geography of 1937): According to historians Kären Wigen and Martin W. Lewis,[2] While it might seem surprising to find North and South America still joined into a single continent in a book published in the United States in 1937, such a notion remained fairly common until World War II. It cannot be coincidental that this idea served American geopolitical designs at the time, which sought both Western Hemispheric domination and disengagement from the “Old World” continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. By the 1950s, however, virtually all American geographers had come to insist that the visually distinct landmasses of North and South America deserved separate designations. This shift did not seem to happen in most other cultural hemispheres on Earth, such as Romance-speaking (including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Switzerland, and the postcolonial Romance-speaking countries of Latin America and Africa), Germanic (but excluding English) speaking (including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands), Baltic-Slavic languages (including Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria) and in many other hemispheres, where America is still considered a continent encompassing the North America and South America subcontinents,[3][4] as well as Central America.[5][6][7][8][9][10] Earliest use of name[edit] World map of Waldseemüller (Germany, 1507), which first used the name America (in the lower-left section, over South America)[11] The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when it was applied to what is now known as South America.[11] It appears on a small globe map with twelve time zones, together with the largest wall map made to date, both created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in France.[12] These were the first maps to show the Americas as a land mass separate from Asia. An accompanying book, Cosmographiae Introductio, anonymous but apparently written by Waldseemüller’s collaborator Matthias Ringmann,[13] states, “I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part [that is, the South American mainland], after Americus who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence, Amerigen, that is, the Land of Americus, or America: since both Europa and Asia got their names from women”. America is also inscribed on the Paris Green Globe (or Globe vert) which has been attributed to Waldseemüller and dated to 1506–07: as well as the single name inscribed on the northern and southern parts of the New World, the continent also bears the inscription: America ab inuentore nuncupata (America, named after its discoverer).[14] Mercator on his map called North America “America or New India” (America sive India Nova).[15] America ab inventore nuncupata (America, called after its discoverer) on the Globe vert, c.1507. Amerigo Vespucci[edit] Americus Vesputius was the Latinized version of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci’s name, the forename being an old Italianization (compare…

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Names of the United States – Wikipedia

Names of the United States Several names of the United States of America are in common use. Formal alternatives to the full name include the “United States”, “America”, as well as the initialisms “U.S.” and the “U.S.A.”; colloquial names include “the States” and the “U.S. of A.” It is generally accepted that the name “America” derives from the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The term dates back to 1507, when it appeared on a world map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, in honor of Vespucci. The full name “United States of America” was first used during the American Revolutionary War, though its precise origin is a matter of contention.[1] The newly formed union was first known as the “United Colonies”, and the earliest known usage of the modern full name dates from a January 2, 1776 letter written between two military officers. The Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson, and the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, both contain the name “United States of America.” The name was officially adopted by the second Continental Congress on September 9, 1776. Etymology[edit] America[edit] The earliest known use of the name “America” dates to 1505, when German poet Matthias Ringmann used it in a poem about the New World.[2] The word is a Latinized form of the first name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass, rather than the eastern limit of Asia.[3][4][5] On April 25, 1507, the map Universalis Cosmographia, created by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, was published alongside this poem.[2][5] The map uses the label “America” for what is now known as South America. In 1538, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator used the name “America” on his own world map, applying it to the entire Western Hemisphere.[6] Alternative theories suggest that “America” derives from the Amerrisque Mountains of Nicaragua,[7] or from the surname of wealthy Anglo-Welsh merchant Richard Amerike.[8] United States of America[edit] The first documentary evidence of the phrase “United States of America” dates from a January 2, 1776, letter written by Stephen Moylan, Esquire, to George Washington’s aide-de-camp Joseph Reed. Moylan was fulfilling Reed’s role during the latter’s absence.[1] Moylan expressed his wish to go “with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain” to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort.[1][9][10] The first known publication of the phrase “United States of America” was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776.[11] It is commonly mistaken that Thomas Paine coined the term in his pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, but he never used the final form.[1][a] The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed no later than June 17, 1776, declared “The name of this Confederation shall be the ‘United States of America’.”[12] The final version of the Articles, sent to the states for ratification in late 1777, stated that “The Stile of this Confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America’.”[13] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” in all capitalized letters in the headline of his “original Rough draught”[b] of the Declaration of Independence. This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term…

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Amerigo Vespucci named America by mistake | OpenMind

Amerigo Vespucci named America by mistake | OpenMind There is only one continental landmass on Earth named after a real person, the Americas, which honours the Florentine-Spanish explorer and cosmographer Amerigo Vespucci. It can also be said to be the first continent that came to European knowledge and was named on well-defined dates. The short version of the story is that it was Vespucci who first realised, on 17 August 1501, that present-day Brazil was not part of Asia but a New World, and that the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller named the new continent of America after him in a map published on 25 April 1507. However, the long version is more complicated, and tells us that the name America is actually the product of some error, a little ignorance and a fair amount of fantasy. Portrait of Amerigo Vespucci. Source: Wikimedia In 1492, the year Christopher Columbus arrived in what would from then on be called the West Indies, the Florentine merchant Amerigo Vespucci (9 March 1454 – 22 February 1512) had settled in Seville on business related to the affairs of his patrons, the Medicis. Although he had no university studies under his belt, he was well educated in geography and astronomy. Increasingly involved in the activities of his superior, Gianotto Berardi, an investor and contractor on Columbus’ expeditions, Vespucci would soon take the leap into exploration himself. In 1497 he would become the first European to set foot on the mainland of the future South America, a year before Columbus, who until then had only visited islands. Here the first objection arises: the only testimony of that voyage is the Soderini letter, a document allegedly signed by Vespucci in which he gave an account of how that 17 August he made landfall on what he recognised as a new continent. However, experts have widely questioned not only the authorship and authenticity of the account, but even the very existence of the expedition. There seems to be no dispute, however, about two other successive voyages by Vespucci, albeit after Columbus’ arrival on the continent. Mundus Novus It was in 1503 that another document signed by Vespucci used the expression Mundus Novus in its title, which would give him primacy in the recognition of the new continent, although the expression “new world” had already been used before; in fact, it is said that Vespucci may have been inspired by Columbus’ reference to “another world.” In the document he writes: “For in those southern parts I have found a continent more densely peopled and abounding in animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa.” He goes on to recount that on 7 August 1501, his flotilla of three Portuguese ships made landfall: “We knew that land to be a continent and not an island both because it stretches forth in the form of a very long and unbending coast, and because it is replete with infinite inhabitants.” Amerigo Vespucci upon his arrival on his first voyage to the New World. Source: Les Grands Voyages Although Mundus Novus appears as a letter addressed to his former patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, it is believed that it is not in fact an original epistle, but rather the work of others as an embellished redrafting of authentic letters by Vespucci. In the document the explorer boasts of how his knowledge of cosmography saved the expedition: “If my companions had not heeded me, who had knowledge of cosmography, there would have been no ship-master, nay not the leader of…

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Coming to America: Who Was First? – NPR

Coming to America: Who Was First? Read an excerpt from Who Was First? by Russell Freedman: Before Columbus For a long time, most people believed that Christopher Columbus was the first explorer to “discover” America—the first to make a successful round-trip voyage across the Atlantic. But in recent years, as new evidence came to light, our understanding of history has changed. We know now that Columbus was among the last explorers to reach the Americas, not the first. Five hundred years before Columbus, a daring band of Vikings led by Leif Eriksson set foot in North America and established a settlement. And long before that, some scholars say, the Americas seem to have been visited by seafaring travelers from China, and possibly by visitors from Africa and even Ice Age Europe. A popular legend suggests an additional event: According to an ancient manuscript, a band of Irish monks led by Saint Brendan sailed an ox-hide boat westward in the sixth century in search of new lands. After seven years they returned home and reported that they had discovered a land covered with luxuriant vegetation, believed by some people today to have been Newfoundland. All along, of course, the two continents we now call North and South America had already been “discovered.” Before European explorers arrived, the Americas were home to tens of millions of native peoples. While those Native American groups differed greatly from one another, they all performed rituals and ceremonies, songs and dances, that brought back to mind and heart memories of the ancestors who had come before them and given them their place on Earth. Who were the ancestors of those Native Americans? Where did they come from, when did they arrive in the Americas, and how did they make their epic journeys? As we dig deeper and deeper into the past, we find that the Americas have always been lands of immigrants, lands that have been “discovered” time and again by different peoples coming from different parts of the world over the course of countless generations—going far back to the prehistoric past, when a band of Stone Age hunters first set foot in what truly was an unexplored New World. 1. Admiral of the Ocean Sea Christopher Columbus was having trouble with his crew. His fleet of three small sailing ships had left the Canary Islands nearly three weeks earlier, heading west across the uncharted Ocean Sea, as the Atlantic was known. He had expected to reach China or Japan by now, but there was still no sign of land. None of the sailors had ever been so long away from the sight of land, and as the days passed, they grew increasingly restless and fearful. The Ocean Sea was known also as the Sea of Darkness. Hideous monsters were said to lurk beneath the waves—venomous sea serpents and giant crabs that could rise up from the deep and crush a ship along with its crew. And if the Earth was flat, as many of the men believed, then they might fall off the edge of the world and plunge into that fiery abyss where the sun sets in the…

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How America Got Its Name – Varsity Tutors

How America Got Its Name The Story of How America Got Its Name It is an irony of history that the name “America” did not come from Christopher Columbus. That distinction belongs to a German writer of geography. In a further twist of events, America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, a 15th century Florentine merchant who owned a business in Seville, Spain, furnishing supplies for ships, preparing them for mercantile expeditions. How do we explain what seems to mock the reality of history? Stirred by the achievements of Columbus and envious of the reputation his discoveries brought, Vespucci endeavored to cultivate Columbus’ friendship and trust.  Seven years after Columbus’ first voyage and while Columbus was still alive, Vespucci accompanied an expedition that consisted of four ships. They sailed past the eastern coast of South America, and visited Trinidad, which Columbus had named the preceding year. On his return to Europe Vespucci wrote letters with glowing descriptions of the newly discovered countries. He called the lands he had visited a “New World.” Some years later Vespucci’s letters were published and read by Martin Waldseemuller, a noted geographer, and Mathias Ringmann, a schoolmaster. Recently arrived from Germany to the province of Lorraine, they were attracted to the town of Saint-Die because of a newly established print shop. Both men were engaged in working on a reproduction of Ptolemy’s treatise on geography, to which they were adding a preface. After reading the account of Vespucci’s travels in “Quatre Navigations d’ Americ Vespuce,” they decided to incorporate Vespucci’s voyage into the treatise. Ringmann, acting as editor, wrote in his introduction: “There is a fourth quarter of the world which Amerigo Vespucci has discovered and which for this reason we can call ‘America’ or the land of Americo.” Apparently ignorant of the discoveries and achievements made by Columbus fifteen years earlier, Ringmann continued: “We do not see why the name of the man of genius, Amerigo, who has discovered them, should not be given to these lands, as Europe and Asia have adopted the names of women.” Their work was published on April 25, 1507 under the title “Cosmographiae Introductio.” It marked the first time the word AMERICA appeared in print.

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