In April 1507 the cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, in the small town of Saint-Die in Lorraine, published a large world map in twelve sheets together with a booklet, Cosmographiae Introductio, which put the name 'America' on the southern continent of the New World, in honour of Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator who had argued, after voyages in 1499 to 1502, that these lands were a new continent and not Asia. Waldseemuller later dropped the name, but it stuck, and was applied to North America by Mercator in 1538. Only one copy of the map survives, bought by the Library of Congress in 2001 for 10 million dollars.
Before and after
- from 16 March 1505 to 26 January 1517Mamluk–Portuguese conflicts
- 18 April 1506Construction of St. Peter's Basilica
- 20 May 1506Death of Christopher Columbus
- 1507Founding of Mumbai
- 25 April 1507The name 'America' appears on a map
- from February 1508 to December 1516War of the League of Cambrai
- March 1508Battle of Chaul
- 30 November 1508Birth of Andrea Palladio
- 10 July 1509Birth of John Calvin
More in Exploration & discovery
- 1513Balboa sights the Pacific
- from 10 August 1519 to 8 September 1522Magellan-Elcano expedition
- 6 September 1522Magellan's expedition completes the first circumnavigation
- 24 November 1605Janszoon voyage of 1606
- May 1607Jamestown
- 27 October 1728Birth of James Cook
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 16th century.