Amerigo Vespucci

Hello! My name is Amerigo Vespucci. I was born in a beautiful city called Florence, in Italy, on March 9th, 1454. When I was a boy, I didn't play with toys as much as I read books and looked at maps. I loved learning about faraway places and studying the stars in the night sky. I always dreamed of seeing the world with my own eyes.

When I grew up, I moved to Spain in 1492. My job was helping to get ships ready for long voyages across the big, mysterious ocean. Around this time, another explorer named Christopher Columbus had sailed west and found land. Everyone thought he had reached Asia! But I was curious and wanted to see for myself.

I finally got my chance to sail! On a very important voyage that started in 1501, I sailed for the King of Portugal. We traveled far south along a huge coast I had never seen on any map of Asia. I saw amazing plants, animals, and people. The more we sailed, the more I thought, 'This isn't Asia... this is something totally new!' I was sure it was a 'New World' that Europeans didn't know about.

I wrote letters about my travels and my idea of a New World. A few years later, in 1507, a famous mapmaker in Germany named Martin Waldseemüller read my letters. He was making a new map of the world and was so excited by my discovery that he decided to name the new continent after me! He called it 'America,' after my first name, Amerigo. Can you imagine that?

I later became the Master Navigator of Spain in 1508, teaching others how to sail and explore. I lived to be 57 years old. Today, people remember me because my voyages helped create a brand new, more accurate map of the world. And of course, my name is right there on the globes you see in your classroom—on North and South America!