Explorers in the New WorldChristopher ColumbusPedro CabralPortuguese ExplorationVicente Yß±ez Pinz≤nAmerigo VespucciOther European ExplorersThe Conquistadors
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Amerigo VespucciAmerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) was a successful merchant-turned explorer from the Italian state of Florence. He made several voyages to the Americas, and made extensive notes of the coastline, which were later used by European mapmakers charting the new continent. Vespucci was the first to openly state that the New World was not a part of Asia, as Columbus had thought, but that it was an entirely different continent. As a result of all the geographical information that Vespucci collected and made available to European mapmakers, that Amerigo Vespucci's name became associated with the new continent – with the name "America" being suggested by the German cartographer, Martin Waldseemⁿller. Vespucci claimed to have first visited the New World on a voyage in 1497. He returned in 1499, along with Alonso de Ojeda, exploring South America's northern coastline near modern-day Venezuela and Northern Brazil. There are some claims that Vespucci reached the Amazon and the Brazilian state of Parß, setting out in smaller boats to investigate them further. Vespucci return again in 1501, working this time for the Portuguese, and travelled down the South American coastline as far as modern-day Argentina. He discovered the present-day site of Rio de Janeiro (River of January) which he named because he found it during the month of January.
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