did assist in the planning of other voyages to the New World.

European colonization of this region accelerated in the years after Vespucci's voyages, resulting in settlements in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. The Italian explorer's work played an important role in helping colonizers navigate the territory.

Death

Vespucci was named pilot-major of Spain in 1508. He was proud of this accomplishment, writing that "I was more skillful than all the shipmates of the whole world." Vespucci contracted malaria and died in Spain in 1512 at the age of 57.

Legacy

The German clergyman-scholar Martin Waldseemüller liked to make up names. He even created his own last name by combining the words for "wood," "lake," and "mill." Waldseemüller was working on a contemporary world map in 1507, based on the Greekgeography of Ptolemy, and he had read of Vespucci's travels and knew that the New World was indeed two continents.

In honor of Vespucci's discovery of this portion of the world, Waldseemüller printed a wood block map (called "Carta Mariana") with the name "America" spread across the southern continent of the New World. Waldseemüller sold 1,000 copies of the map across Europe.

Within a few years, Waldseemüller had changed his mind about the name for the New World—but it was too late. The name America had stuck. Gerardus Mercator's world map of 1538 was the first to include North America and South America. Vespucci's legacy lives on through the continents named in his honor.

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