[交流] Why the American continent was named not after Columbus

Do you know the reason why the American continent was named "American" but not after Columbus who discovered it? Well, here are some simple interpretation: We know, between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, all of them under the sponsorship of the Crown of Castile. These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history. Columbus himself always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers. Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus. So, you get it now? And I gotcha it until just now. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus [ Last edited by fungixx on 2012-5-2 at 17:33 ]

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