The 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemuller is often called "America's Birth Certificate," because it is the first document on which the name "America" appears. German Chancellor Angela Merkel officially transferred the map to the Library of Congress in April 2007. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer accepted the map on behalf of the U.S. government, and Merkel, Hoyer and Librarian of Congress James H. Billington delivered remarks at the ceremony. The Library of Congress had purchased the map for 0 million in 2003.
While I greatly admire Chancellor Angela Merkel, she should have given the map to the King of Spain, the real heirs, not to the United States for political reasons.
The map has written the word America at about 15 degrees south of the Equator in South America, not in North America!
The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia ("Universal Cosmography") is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name America is placed on South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci. The map is drafted on a modification of Ptolemy's second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes.[2] A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Waldseemüller also created globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth. The wall map, and his globe gores of the same date, depict the American continents in two pieces. These depictions differ from the small inset map in the top border of the wall map, which shows the two American continents joined by an isthmus. Wikipedia conveniently omits to mention that Waldssemüller was commissioned the map by the Holy Roman Emperor King of Spain and of Germany to map the New World and the rest of the known world. He placed the named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine (Italy did not exist) naturalized Spanish at the service of King Carlos I of Spain also known as Charles V of Germany. It appears the Anglophilic Wikipedia gets indigestion with anything Spanish. They both were subjects and served the Spanish Crown over 100 years before any English colonists arrived in the New World already called America by its discoverers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldseem%C3%BCller_map https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Waldseem%C3%BCller It is the epitome of arrogance usurping the name of the whole continent to the last arrivals on it.
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