John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci

1. John Cabot andAmerigo Vespucci Pgs. 138-139

2. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.