How did the new continents across the Atlantic Ocean come to be called America?

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ike most, I've known that the Americas were named after Amerigo

Vespucci since my early education. However, the story behind why

this is the case is somewhat more interesting and quite a bit less

well known. Vespucci was a navigator that traveled to "the new

world" in 1499 and 1502. Being a well educated man, he realized

that this new world was not part of Asia, as some had initially

thought. Vespucci chose to write about his travels and his books

were published in 1502 and 1504. Being both entertaining and

educational, his accounts of the new world were reprinted in almost

every European language.