Amerigo+Vespucci

 **Amerigo Vespucci**

The explorer I studied was Amerigo Vespucci. He was born in 1451 in Florence, Italy. He was a very smart man and was educated in astronomy, geography, and natural philosophy. He was best known for improving navigation by inventing a system which helped to find latitude. He made a map to navigate across the Atlantic ocean and used Mars and the moon. Vespucci was also was one of the early explorers of the New World. He said that South America was a new continent, not part of Asia. America was named after him. In 1492, Amerigo Vespucci left Italy and was sent to Spain by the Medicis’s family. There he met Christopher Columbus, and started his first expedition. He worked on many ships and sailed under the Portuguese flag.In 1497 he left Spain and sailed across the Atlantic. This voyage took him 64 days. He landed in Mexico but then sailed on up along the east coast of the United States as far as North Carolina. He wrote letters to his friends in Europe and he talked about the different cultures of the people and their daily lives that he met along the way.

In 1499,Vespucci went on his second voyage with a Spanish navigator and cartographer. The three men left in three different ships.Vespucci reached the coast of Brazil and then traveled to the mouth of the Amazon River before he met up with the other men. He then returned to Spain.  Vespucci’s third voyage was ordered by King Manuel of Portugal. He sailed until he found eastern Brazil in 1501. After he returned back to Spain, he was given a position of pilot-major due to his geographic and navigational knowledge.

 Unfortunately Amerigo Vespucci had died from malaria in 1512 at age 58. He became famous because of a man named Martin Waldseemuller who was a cartographer. This man named the New World after him. He will always be remembered for having his name on the New world. By Amanda Pachico

