13th May, 1501 started the legendary voyage of Amerigo Vespucci to the west

On the 13th of May, 1501 Italian traveler Amerigo Vespucci went in his first expedition. During the voyage, he realized that Columbus was able to visit previously unknown continent, not in Asia, as the pioneer believed.

Before that Vespucci has never travel, but he was able to make a correct idea of ​​the American continent as a transatlantic southern continent. Exactly Vespucci proposed to call the U.S. land the New World. However in 1507 cartographer Martin Waldseemüller took the discovery of the continent to the merits of Vespucci and drew a map of where the mainland is named as the "Land of Amerigo. Soon the name of America appeared on numerous maps and stuck.

In total, Vespucci sailed to America three times. Its achievements include the discovery of the Amazon delta, the bay of Rio de Janeiro. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Vespucci was an honest man and never arrogated to himself the discovery of America.