Amerigo Vespucci Biography

Amerigo Vespucci (Italian pronunciation: [ameˈriːɡo vesˈputtʃi]; March 9, 1454 – February 22, 1512) was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. He first demonstrated in about 1502 that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus' voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass hitherto unknown to people of the Old World. Colloquially referred to as the New World, this second super continent came to be termed "Americas", deriving its name from Americus, the Latin version of Vespucci's first name.