Did you know?

As residents of the United States of America celebrate the nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, some might be curious where the "America" portion of the country's name comes from. According to the Library of Congress, America is named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The LOC contends that Vespucci was the first to suggest that the lands Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent. German mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller honored Vespucci's assertion in 1507, when he created a notable map that was the first to depict the lands as a separate continent, naming the area "America," which is a Latinized version of "Amerigo." That map is now part of the cartographic collections at the LOC, and is sometimes referred to as "America's Birth Certificate."