Trextrev t1_ixk1fg9 wrote on November 24, 2022 at 12:45 AM

Reply to comment by ImThatAnnoyingGuy in Researchers in Galicia open 15th-century tomb to test Columbus link theory. Explorer is generally believed to have been born in Italy in 1451 but some argue he was in fact born in Spain by ArtOak

You keep using the term “Americas” when Columbus didn’t discover or rediscover The Americas. They were named after Amerigo Vespucci who was the first European to spot them in 1501. As far as Columbus knew he just found some new islands “West Indies”.

ImThatAnnoyingGuy t1_ixkqqgl wrote on November 24, 2022 at 4:19 AM

You’re technically correct, but given that Columbus sailed in 1492 and discovered islands in the Caribbean, he is generally given credit for discovering the “New World.” At least that was the story when I was kid some 30+ years ago. History gets revised and refined as new sources are uncovered and reconciled with the existing body of literature/evidence. Vespucci came after Columbus on subsequent voyages that aimed to understand the scope of Columbus’ discovery. I am not sure if anyone actually referred to the previously unknown (to 15-16th Century Europeans) lands as the Americas at the time, but it’s a modern convention aimed at making it simple to refer to the lands that would be uncovered as a result of his “discovery.”