Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci (; Italian: [ameˈriːɡo veˈsputtʃi]; 9 March 1451 – 22 February 1512) was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the term "America" is derived. Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain (1499–1500) and then for Portugal (1501–1502). In 1503 and 1505, two booklets were published under his name, containing colourful descriptions of these explorations and other alleged voyages. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Amerigo Vespucci has received more than 4,893,839 page views. His biography is available in 94 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 90 in 2019). Amerigo Vespucci is the 5th most popular explorer (up from 6th in 2019), the 25th most popular biography from Italy (up from 26th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Italian Explorer.

Amerigo Vespucci is most famous for being the first person to realize that the continents of South America and North America were not connected, but were in fact two separate continents.