John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci Pgs. 138-139

John Cabot 1497 – John Cabot sailed across the Atlantic on a voyage paid for by England. He landed in Newfoundland then returned to England and told everyone that he had found the land of the great Kublai Khan. The English made John Cabot a hero.

Christopher Columbus Columbus never knew that he had not reached Asia. Until his death in 1506, Columbus kept on saying that he had found a new water route to Asia. Other explorers proved him wrong.

Vespucci Challenges Columbus Amerigo Vespucci studied the work Claudius Ptolemy an astronomer in Egypt. Vespucci learned the Earth was larger and Asia was smaller than most believed. If Asia were as far east as Columbus claimed, it would cover half the Earth. He knew this could not be true.

Vespucci Challenges Columbus Vespucci disputed the distance Columbus had traveled. On his journey, Vespucci figured he had traveled 6,500 miles – more than three times the distance Columbus thought he had sailed.

A New Conclusion Amerigo Vespucci concluded that Columbus and Cabot had not sailed to Asia. He concluded that the land they had found had to be another continent – the “new world” that some Europeans thought might be there.

America and Amerigo Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) was the first person to realize that the Americas were separate from the continent of Asia. America was named for him in 1507, when a German mapmaker printed the first map that used the name America for the New World.