Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, sailor and merchant after whom “America” was named when, in 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller made a map on which he gave the name America to the newly discovered continent.
”Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,— never hear of America, so-called from the name of a European gentleman.”
-Henry David Thoreau
1857, The Maine Woods
(Describing places he might visit within the deep woods of New England where no sign or memory of civilization exist)
