November 14, 2020 • 41 mins
America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, right? Maybe not. And who named Australia? Find out the unusually uncertain origins of the continents and other interesting stuff in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, everybody, who gets to name continents? That's a great question,
and we answer that on March sixteen. I think this
is a Josh pick really interesting interesting topic because heck
I didn't know who gets to name continents? And now
I do. And if you haven't listened to this one,
give it a listen. Now it's a very very cool
episode Who gets to Name Continents? Welcome to Stuff You
(00:29):
Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So
this is Stuff you should know. Geography. We are in
North America. That's right, Chuck. According to some Yeah, actually
(00:52):
according to everybody. No, not everybody. Oh yeah, we'll get
to it. Okay, we don't want to spoil like basically
the fact of the podcast right already. Uh, this is
as I said about geography. And if this kind of
thing puts your boat, I strongly suggest you go look
at how Maps work or read or listen to that episode. Yeah,
it was a good one. It was. Remember we've found
(01:14):
that like people, other people see the world the map
upside down. Sure, you know, Yeah, it all depends on
how you look at it, agreed. And that actually kind
of comes into play, not just with how you look
at a map and say, oh, I'm on top and
you're on bottom, so therefore you must be developing. Um.
Naming continents is a kind of a what what we
(01:38):
humans are kind of big on names, I guess. Yeah,
we're big on location. We're big on identifying with where
we're from, with where we live, that kind of stuff.
It's a whole in group out group bs, you know. Yeah,
and uh boy, I have to say for a short
ish podcast, which this is going to be, it's not
(01:59):
gonna be our longest one. Let's take an eye break, No,
not yet. I hazard to say that I learned more
in this than ten Barbie podcast than the ten Barbie podcast.
Actually that's not true. I learned a lot in that
one too, that one, but this is just loaded with
interesting stuff because I am not the biggest geography buff.
For someone who is a math or a maps buff, yeah,
(02:21):
well you like for the artistry, right, Yeah? And I
was just ordered a great new map. Um. I wish
I could remember the guy's name, but it was read
an article on this super detailed, awesome map of the
United States, and this guy spent years and years, uh
drawing Arby's all over the country. Not an Army's map
(02:42):
that would be great, though, although you can just follow
your nose. You don't really need it always knows, Yeah,
just like smell the Horsey sauce. I love that stuff.
Although the Arvy sauces by far the superior of the two. Well,
I think you got mixed them. That's the key. Not always.
I'm more of a beef and cheddar chedd to mix
with the Arby's sauce. It's delicious, and the horse sauce,
(03:03):
although I'm okay with horse sauce. Sometimes I haven't had
Arbies and forever. Oh yeah, it's delicious. That I have
a fairly disgusting roast beeep sandwich is so good, right
all right? Uh? Anyway, I ordered this amazing map and
um it hasn't arrived. I can't wait for it to
get here, though. It's gonna Actually I'm gonna frame this one,
I think. Okay, you don't have all your maps framed, No,
(03:27):
you need like a huge, huge wing of your house
and just have every map you have right framed on
the wall. That should be like, I'm starting to see
a pattern here. That would mean I have a huge
room to my house, all to myself, and that's not true, unfortunately.
Do you know how to swing a hammer, don't you? Yeah,
just build another room, Chuck room. I wish my friend so, Chuck.
(03:49):
We were talking about um continents in their names and
all that stuff, right, it turns out that when you
think about the continents names, some of them seem kind
of whole hum or whatever. There's actually some really great
stories behind these things, um and the we should probably
start at the very beginning, way back, way way back
(04:09):
in n even further back than that n million years ago,
if you looked at the planet Earth, you would have
seen that there weren't a bunch of different continents. That
there was actually one huge continent that wore a headman
and had enormous like four arms, named Pangaea. Yeah, what
(04:30):
a stud that continent was. And there was one ocean, uh,
and the name of that ocean was Pantalassa. Yeah, it
wasn't all divided up. It was just one big chunk
of land and surrounded by one massive ocean. Right. And then,
as we'll see later, this is the prominent theory by
the way, right, Okay, we don't like no one was
(04:51):
around back then two million years and go and be
like note to two thousand sixteen. This is the way
things are land wise around here. Um. No. And the
this this theory actually was we've talked about before. It
had to have been in the earthquakes episode. This guy
was awesome. Alfred. Yeah. Back in I think nineteen fifteen
he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Um.
(05:16):
The theory, well, there's some reasons behind it, but the
theory is that you know, the Earth that's made up
these big plates. If you listen to our volcanoes or
earthquake episodes, we talk a lot about that, and over
time these things cracked apart and shifted and drifted. Uh,
and we now have many continents. Right, But that's not
what people thought for a very long time, Like they
(05:39):
guess they just took for granted that the continents were
the way they were. But Alfred Wegner, Um, first of all,
he noticed on a map, like, wow, it looks like
you could really tuck Africa, um, East West Africa into
the eastern part of South America. Really nicely. Yeah. And
in fact, the more I look at it, the whole
thing looks like a puzzle that kind of fits together. Yeah,
(06:01):
if you're if you have a brain. So that's where
he got his idea first, and then he started setting
about proving it or supporting coming up with evidence. How
about that? And um, one of the things he looked
at was coal steams along edges of these puzzle pieces
and found that they were composed of basically the same stuff. Yeah,
like cole in Pennsylvania. Deposits in Pennsylvania were similar or
(06:25):
the same to those in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah,
which shouldn't happen because what coal is is basically compressed
former organisms decaying matter. Right, And so you would think
that these different organisms would have evolved differently on different
continents if they weren't together. And the fact that they
were the same and and decomposed in about the same
(06:49):
amounts suggests that they were all part of the same
land mass at one point. Pretty neat. And then he
also found fossils on different continents that really shouldn't have
been the same. You saw plant fossils and said, wait
a minute, I'm finding this stuff and in places that
are wildly different from one another, these fossils. So maybe
again that lends to my theory. Or how about this
(07:12):
mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains, very similar to the Atlas
Mountains of Morocco. Maybe it was all one big mountainous
mass at one point, and it turns out they probably were.
That's right. What was the name of that mountain range?
Were part of the Central Pangaea Mountains, which apparently formed
through the collision of the supercontinents of Gondwana and uh Laurusia. Yeah,
(07:35):
because and we're we're also um. In addition to this
how stuff works article, you found a great article by
Tia Ghosts, who writes for Live Science and writes some
pretty great stuff. Yeah, this is really good and Ghosts
um is basically just broke it all out, like how
Pangaea formed, what Pangia broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah,
and concise. I like articles. It's not fluff, you know,
(07:58):
just like packed with tacks. Get to it right at
the beginning. Okay, I love it, and don't let up,
don't stop till you have enough. So uh. In the
article they talk about the h the process that spanned
a few hundred million years with a continent called Laurentia.
That's a great continent name part of it, which includes
(08:18):
part of North America and some other micro continents that
formed eventually You're America. That's not bad. It sounds like
a craft work album. Oho, it does totally. Uh You're
America crashes into Gondwana, which I mentioned before and I
liked to. I'm just gonna come and say, I like
these pre current continent continent names, pre white dude names, right,
(08:42):
I guess so, but I think they were named by
white dudes, probably more creative white dudes. Uh, and Gondwana
included Africa, Australia, South America, and uh Indian subcontinent. Yeah.
So like all these it's so hilarious that all of
these um, these ideas of nationalist them in all this. Man,
if you've just gone back a few hundred million years
(09:02):
ago used to be one, you'd be neighbors. Let's all
just lighten up, exactly. And that's actually a thing that
we we talked about in the Maps episode two, is
like when you draw a map, you are you're making
a political statement. It's just there's such a sense of
otherness and togetherness based on geographical distribution. That it's it is,
it's it's interesting. It says a lot about the human psyche. Yeah,
(09:26):
we should do a podcast one day on the human
family tree. Yeah, we're super interesting. Yeah. Uh So, getting
back to the super continent, a couple of hundred million
years ago, Gondwana split off from laur Asia. That's a
good one to fifty million years later Gondwana broke up.
(09:47):
Uh And then they've had a sixty million years ago
North America split off from Eurasia. And these are all
the prominent theories. Again. Yeah, well they follow the continental
drift theory. And I mean it's not like they're just like,
let's say, let's say the Indian subcontinent broke off from
this continent. It's like, no, they they have gone through
(10:10):
and done the geological comparisons and have seen like when
this basically matched up to that, and that's what they've
come up with. It's pretty astounding that you can do
that if you have that enough patients in brains. Uh So. Interestingly,
they talked a little bit in the article about a
climate and what it might have been like back then
and maybe the interior of this large supercontinent was completely
(10:33):
dry because it was surrounded by mountains. Uh. Maybe parts
of what is now North America used to be like
the Amazon rainforest, like a super lush jungle, right, it
would be kind of cool. Yeah, but if once you
got into the interior, when you crossed the what was
it the Central Um the Central Pangaea mountains, Yeah, like
you were just you Apparently there was a ring of
(10:56):
mountains that that ran around the middle of the whole
Pangaea in the interior, and um, it just produced rain
shadows that kept rain out from the interior of the continent,
So it would have just been just a totally arid desert.
Pretty cool, It is cool. Uh, And of course this
isn't over. They point out in the article that things
(11:17):
are still changing. Um, Australias is creeping up on Asia. Yeah,
very slowly, of course. Yeah. Pretty cool and uh, parsh,
part of Eastern Africa is just trying to get out
of the rest of Africa. Yeah, Eastern Africa is staying
so long. I'm I'm going off on my own. I'm
gonna seek my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this
(11:40):
is over the course of hundreds of millions of years,
so you will likely not be wrung unless the singularity
happens soon. Yeah, exactly, then you may and you can
be like, this is pretty cool. The people of Sydney
will have a docking party with the people of Hong Kong.
I love that. Uh so you want to take a
little break here, then we'll talk a little bit about
these names. Yes, so, Chuck. That is the theory of
(12:25):
continental drifting. The whole idea is that, um, there's a
layer of magma and then on top of it are
the continental plates, and they're constantly shifting and moving again,
albeit very slowly, and when they do, they expose a
fissure and you've got volcanic activity, or two plates slide
up against one another, or one subducts below the other
one and you have earthquakes. So there's a lot of
(12:47):
evidence that continental drift is real and that things like
hollow earth are probably not correct. Probably have you noticed
every time we do any kind of geography, especially when
we mentioned plate tectonics, the the hollow earth people come
out of the woodwork and just send us emails and
leave comments and yeah, man, they're they're they're they're like
(13:07):
the high freak tost corncert people, they're like really active
in the comments section. Yeah, Froto in the Gang. Oh wait,
that's Middle Earth different. Uh. And Pangea, we should mention,
is Greek for all lands or all earth. So that's
a great name for the original super continent, right. And
Panthelossa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it. And
(13:29):
Pangea was what's considered a true continent. We should say
this because they'll come up later, but a true continent
is a land mass surrounded by ocean on all sides.
I'm looking at you, Asia in Europe. I know, you know,
I know in fact part of Actually I think you
sent this idea, didn't you. Yeah, what the whole idea
(13:52):
for the show was from you. But not too long ago,
I was, I think Emily asked me. She was like,
what is Russia? Is that part of Is it Asian?
Or is it European? And I was like, well, I
don't know, Asia, let's go look, well it depends part
of it. Well yeah, part of it then same with Turkey.
(14:12):
Is is split and uh, you know, some people identify
with Europe, some people identify with Asia. That's why the
term Eurasia. Well, no, I got that, and I got
it from this article, but I didn't know that like
Russia itself was split, you know, Yeah, that's what it says.
Like I could see like um uh Kazakhstan or something
(14:33):
being like straddling the sides, but I didn't realize like
Russia itself was split some that's pretty interesting, maybe some Russians.
All right, in tell us how you identify? Yeah, are
you Eurasian, Asian, European? Which one? Yeah, because obviously a
lot of these lines are drawn culturally. Um right, because
(14:54):
their mountain ranges that that separated. That's not I mean,
it's a geographical border, but not when you're speaking in continents,
it's not incontinents. Should we tell them Jerry's bad joke? Yes,
Before we started, Jerry said, I guess we're technically all incontinent,
and I said, no, technically we're all on continent. And
(15:16):
then she said or within continent, and none of the
three things that we said. We're funny. That's that's how
things happened before we hit record. Yeah, that's why we
don't release this stuff beforehand. It's usually much better than that.
So let's get down to this chuck, all right, let's
talk about naming continents, right, all right. Apparently with continents,
if you are prominently involved with its discovery, you typically
(15:42):
get some sort of naming rights. Yeah, and a lot
of these are very uh. Just conjecture goes into maybe
who name these and who didn't? Um. One big exception
is Antarctica because it's new ish. It's like the Pluto. Yeah,
as far as when people discovered it. Uh. In fact,
you can go to the New York Times and read
(16:03):
in uh nineteen o four about the naming of Antarctica
if you were so inclined to be bored to tears. No,
I love those old articles. I like a lot of
them too, Like remember the subway accident where people got
shot out of the subway tunnel that was being dug. Yeah,
that was an interesting article. This one is it's bad?
Oh did you read it? No? Just this enough? Okay. Well,
(16:26):
a man named Sir John Murray was a great exploring oceanographer. Uh.
He was part of the famous HMS Challenger expedition, which,
for my money, is the greatest of all ocean going explorations.
The Challenger. Yeah, man, sixty nine thousand nautical miles. Unbelievable,
(16:46):
if you look at the map of the this thing
of the route, it was just it's staggering. Do you
have a map of it? I don't own one, but
I looked it up today, which is pretty neat. And
I never knew what HM stood for. Did you know
that Her Majesty's ship? Yeah, I never knew that. It's
just like HMS. The there's another one that I don't like,
r MS. I don't know. And uh, what is the
(17:09):
USS just United States Ship? I don't know. I never
thought about that either. Probably probably someone from the Navy
could maybe point us in the right direction. So anyway,
John Murray, even though the expedition, the Challenger expedition did
not they kind of buzzed Antarctica. They didn't actually see
(17:29):
the land, but they came close. But he would later
go on to do like, actually go to Antarctica. Okay,
I was gonna say, like, then, how did he know
anything about it? I guess his interest was Pete. He
saw icebergs and stuff. I'm coming back, um because this
place is cold. He's come. I'm coming for you, Taro
and Tiro uh so. In nineteen o four, um, he
(17:51):
actually was able to name it as a combination of
aunt opposite an Arctic, the North Pole, so the opposite
of the North Pole the South Pole pretty neat? And
which one has penguins? And so the Antarctica has penguins
and the North Pole doesn't. Isn't that right? I don't remember,
but that's like, that's the case, right, doesn't one have
(18:12):
one and the other one doesn't? I know, we got
a lot of emails. I don't know why I'm doing
this again. I might as well just hook a car
battery up to my nipples or something. It'll get the
same I got you on that one. Yeah, that was good. Um,
So let's talk about America because I just realized something
to check. This may be played in um geography classes
(18:35):
in like middle school and stuff. So if that's the case,
I want to go ahead and apologize to all the
middle schoolers who just had to hear me say that
that's okay, and don't don't try that at home. It
doesn't matter what grade you're in or how how long
out of school you are, agreed, So America the name America.
If you went to took Civics class or geography and
(18:58):
elementary school and high school, you probably got the story.
That Amerigo Vespucci was. It was named after him. European explorer. Yeah,
that guy has been slandered, maligned, maybe worse than Columbus
even apparently he had a lot of rivals back in Italy,
and um they worked very hard to sully his name,
(19:21):
and it was quite effective over the centuries, to the
point where there was a big, almost a revival in
in hatred for America Vespucci and a lot of really
um uh inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary
propaganda against him. So so what's the idea that he
(19:44):
ripped off Columbus. Well, that's not It depends on your
definition of ripped off. So I don't have the impression
that he ever said I discovered America. He said Columbus
discovered America. But the distinction between in Vespucci and Columbus
is that Columbus didn't realize that he hadn't hit already,
(20:06):
that he hadn't hit undiscovered or previously undiscovered by European land. Right.
He thought that he had just found another route to
the West Indies. Apparently, until he died, Vespucci was the
one to say no Europeans ever seen this before. Please,
that was great. No, it wasn't. I like it. Um.
(20:26):
And so he is the one who supposedly this continent
was named after because he was the one to recognize
it as previously uncharted land. Yeah, and it's on record. Um.
In fifteen o seven, a cartographer, a German cartographer named Martina.
Our two favorite accents, Yeah, Italian and Germany. Two are
(20:49):
the only two you can still do these days and
not get taken a desk barce. Uh. He very famously
made a map that was a big effort in France.
Uh in the fifteen hundreds too, really bring the modern
map into the forefront and like these old maps like
these were made by a bunch of dummies who didn't
(21:11):
know anything. So let's really expand our geographic knowledge. And yeah,
this has when like mercater started working. Yeah. So this,
this woodcut map that um Valtzemula made was the first
to depict a separate Western hemisphere, the first to show
the Pacific Ocean as a separate thing. Oh, this guy,
he was here, He's like, get that sea monster off
(21:31):
of there. I'd leave a sea monster just for fun,
but he um, it's an easter egg there. Yeah, there
was one of these maps. There is one of these
maps still uh existing, And in two thousand three, the
Library of Congress bought it with the donation from Discovery Channel.
Oh is that a right? Apparently for ten million bucks.
(21:53):
It was in a castle for three and fifty years
in southern Germany, and they're like, wow, let's buy it
and display it. I read about a guy who found
an original copy of the Declaration of Independence folded up
behind a painting that he bought at a yard sale.
That four dollars amazing, and I think he sold it
for like a few million, and then Norman Mailer bought
(22:14):
it for like eight million. But yeah, it's somebody just
found the Declaration of It and it's I guess in
much the same way. That's amazing. Yeah, I got nothing
in my attic. I even looked, Oh you did look.
I say, you don't know, but I guess you do.
Some old doors doors can be worth Yeah, the door
from the early nineteen thirties. Yeah, people love those things
(22:36):
that go crazy for him. I think it's neat. But
you know, I wanted like a stash of gold bullion
or something like Prohibition era money. Yeah, my house, and
where's your house beelt like nineteen thirty Prohibition. Yeah, I
guess so maybe some old booze would be delicious. So um,
(22:56):
the reason this map is significant by is that it
says America like North South America are designated America by
this map. And this this map that is in question
was from when was it fifteen o seven? And um,
somebody said, hey, buddy, um, why did you call it America?
(23:21):
And he said, I did it in honor of Americo Vespucci.
So the first guy who really uses the word America
is on record apparently is saying he named it America
after Americo Vespucci. But a lot of people said that's
a lie, it's a historical fallacy, it's inaccurate. One guy
went so far as to say that Amerigo Vespucci actually
(23:42):
changed his name after America was named, and that his
real name was um uh Giovanni Vespucci, no Alberigo Vespucci,
and that he changed his name to Amerrigo from Alberigo
to conveniently with the naming of America. Right. Um, But apparently,
(24:03):
and this is this again, this is contemporary stuff. People said,
you changed your name, you big liar um. And then
in like the nineteen seventies. I think some historian revived
it and like that was the idea, But somebody else
went back and apparently found his baptismal certificate that lists
him as Amerigo Vespucci. The thing is is that still
(24:24):
doesn't mean that America was named after Vespucci Chock. There
was a long um tradition among cartographers that had already
been established by the time America was discovered to name
new lands. If you were naming it after an explorer,
you named it after the explorer's last name. If you
want to name it after royalty, you named it after
the royalty's first name. So think about it. Georgia um uh,
(24:50):
Virginia um, and then Columbus or Hudson, like the explorer's
last name, a royalty's first name is how you names
thinks they would have named America Vespucci Land the United
States of Vespucci exactly rather than America. Yeah, that'd be great.
But if it's not named after Vespucci, then where did
America come from? Well there are some theories. One is
(25:12):
that it was named after the Americ kick America americ
ki it's a Mayan word. Actually, Yes, mountains in Nicaragua
and um, this is where my money goes, you think
so so Um, people think that Columbus and Vespucci both
went to these mountains after American natives said, Hey, there's
gold in them dar Hills, which of course is really
(25:34):
all they wanted anyway. Well, that's not true. They wanted
to discover new lands, but hopefully new lands with gold
and people you could subjugate. Um, so that they went
to there, and then it was named after those mountains. Yeah,
not bad. And did you say both Columbus and Vespucci
supposedly traveled to these mountains. Yeah, because they wanted the gold, right,
(25:55):
So that's a pretty good reason to call it that.
And um, when you combine that with the evidence that
a cartographer likely would have named it Vespucci Land rather
than America after America, Um, it's entirely possible that America
is actually named after a indigenous Mayan word for some mountains.
(26:17):
I think it means place of wind in Mayan. Interesting. Uh.
Another theory, and this one I don't think it's very
I don't think it holds water. But there was a
British Royal rep named Richard Americ A. M. E. R.
I k E and supposedly explorer John Cabot became the
first well this isn't supposed in four seven, he definitely
(26:39):
became the first to sail under the British flag to
the New World. And apparently when he got back he
got a big wad of cash from America and he
was like, Hey, I'm gonna name the country in continent
after you. Then, but that there's really nothing to substantiate that, right,
and then Cabot retired to make some pretty decent butter
(27:00):
Oh yeah, so that him, I think, So okay, surely
it's him. Still, maybe I need several hundred years old.
Do you want to take a break again, Yeah, let's break,
and then we'll talk about our favorite continent, Australia. So, Chuck,
(27:34):
you were telling everybody our favorite continent is Australia. Yeah,
that's what Lex Luthor Gene Hackman is less. Lex Luthor
wanted in Superman. He wanted Australia to his own or
Superman too. Um, yeah, I remember Electric The three uh
the three uh Terrance uh Terrence uh Stamp in the
(27:58):
gang came down and he and like Luthor was working
in cahoots with them and they were like, well, what
do you want in return for delivering Superman? He said Australia,
I don't remember that man. Gina Hacker was great. I
saw this the beginning of a movie with Robin Williams
and Walter math Ou. Robin Williams was like a baby
at the time, but like they foil a robbery and
(28:19):
like become heroes, I think. And then they yeah, they
go to like a survivalist camp or something. I think
it's called Survivors. I think. So I saw like the
first ten minutes, but I was like, man, there's no one,
no one on the planet like Walter math Ou anymore.
Like he was awesome. And then I was like, god,
I can't imagine Robin Williams and Walter math how working together?
(28:44):
And then didn't they do like Moscow on the Hudson too?
Wasn't that one? And then I don't went on, I
don't think math that was in that one. Oh he wasn't.
I thought he was. Maybe it wasn't. I could be
wrong because I never saw it. Those early Robin Williams
movies were great. Recording to Garp, I never saw that
one that was by the guy who did Sighter House
Rules right, John Irving. He was pretty great. Um, but
(29:05):
then it made me think about Couch Trip. You remember
that movie with Dana k Royd and Walter math I
didn't see it. Was it good? Yes, it was so good.
I'm I haven't seen it in decades, but I guarantee
it still holds up. I mean it's math Owen Ackroyd. Yeah,
one's like a con man pretending to be crazy and
the other one actually is crazy. Who's the only person
(29:28):
who can sense that this guy's a con man? You know,
I've never been this. You know, I'm sorry. He's a
con man pretending to not be crazy. That makes more sense.
It's great. I've never been the hugest danac roy guy. Uh.
He definitely is Danakroyd. Dana Kroyd and I don't dislike him,
but Walter math I was providing a nice slow burning
(29:49):
distraction over here. If you don't like Dana Kroyd, you'll
still like Couch Trip. Yeah, em boy, the odd couple
math Owen Lemon. I don't know if I ever saw
that original one. So good? All right, that's called movie
Sidebar with Josh and Chuck, and that started with Geene
Heckman We didn't mean to talk about him. Oh I
love Jeane hack He needs to unretire, is what I'm saying. Like,
(30:11):
go'll make another movie your swan song. That's what I say. Alright,
we own you, Gene Hackman. Australia, which is what Gene
Hackman is, like Luthor wanted. Um, it is a bit
of a mystery to most. People will point to Matthew
Flinders in two as the nam er because he was
(30:32):
the first to circumnavigate it and create that map, and
Australis means southern, so it all makes sense, right yeah,
back in back in the day. Um, the cartographers are
already aware of Australia before Matthew Flinders circumnavigated it, but
they called it the Terra Australis, which is the southern land.
Matthew Flinders is like I like the sign of Australia more,
(30:54):
it's more pleasing to the ear, apparently, is how it
was put right, Um, the thing is is and for
a very long time that's how Australia was named as
far as anyone was concerned. But then Australia's National Library
discovered a way older map from before eighteen o two
from fifty five. Yeah, from a German astronomer name Siriaco
(31:16):
yakub sum Barth. That's a great name, great name, not
at all German if you ask me, except for the
yakub thing, uh um Barth is but that's Siriaco. Definitely
doesn't look German. But yeah, fifty five, that's like way
way before. Yeah, and apparently there's maps that are even
slightly older than that around and one of them might
(31:36):
have been produced by Mercator himself. Uh that also refer
to the area around Australia as Australia something so not
everyone was referring to it exclusively as the Terra Australias.
But it's probably it's probable that the Syriac go yakub
zoom Barth is the one who first labeled it Australia.
(31:59):
All right, we should do a podcast on the history
of Australia. Sure, super interesting, starring Hugh Jackman for the
World War Two part. By the way, when I mentioned
Hugh Jackman is P. T. Barnum, he is in fact
playing P. T. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of movie.
But right right, either didn't know or I subliminally knew,
(32:20):
but I didn't overtly know. I thought later on after
I found that out, that you've just been messing with
me the whole episode. Well, I apologize for assuming that
that's all right. I either didn't know, or maybe I
had read that and just forgot or something because you
said it like three times yeah, or maybe I should
get into cast. If you didn't know, then hats off
(32:41):
to you because that was prescient. So now let's move
on to Oh did you see some of the suggestions
we got though? Oh? For P. T. Barnum, Yeah, I
think that my favorite one was John c Riley. He'd
be an odd John c. Or he'd be an odd P. T. Barnum,
but he could totally do it. Yeah. I saw one.
Someone said Tom Hardy, who like he'd be great in anything,
(33:04):
but he's in everything right now, right now. And then
someone sent cole Meny. It was sort of like the
the names, like I know the name, who is it?
That he's like the English John c Riley. He sort
of looks like him. He's older though, right or he
may be Irish. Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah, yeah,
I know who he is. They kind of look alike
(33:24):
a bit Cole mean, he's got a little more dapperness
to him, a little more suave. Nois maybe, well, there's
nothing about John c Riley the Swave. Have you seen
we need to talk about Kevin. Oh, you'll love it.
The movie It's a sleeper with John c Riley and
Till the Swinton about um, they have a kid who's
(33:45):
a bad kid until the Swinton's having to deal with it. Interesting,
really great movie. It's on Netflix right now. I love
John c Riley, so he's kind of a prop in
the background for this. It's mostly Till the Swinton, and
I'm sure they appreciate hearing that he knows Okay, there's
no way he played that role and doesn't. Now. I
(34:06):
never knew we could talk so much about movies in
this one. I didn't see that coming. Um, so let's
talk about the other continents, um, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Basically,
what it boils down to with the rest of these
is they were likely named by sailors who had to
call them something. Yeah, probably um, and they're like Africa
(34:28):
has a few different contenders that are pretty good. Um.
There's a a afrak people who are in the northern
part of Africa. There there Berber tribe not a bad source. Yeah,
makes sense. Um. And then apparently at PreK in Greek
or a preca in Latin means sunny, right, yeah, makes
(34:50):
sense to uh. And then there's uh so who who knows?
The point is there's no documentation for when Africa was
for named, and it was most likely Africa, Europe and
Asia were named by seafaring folks who were like, we're
going this place, and they needed a name for this
(35:12):
place so they their families would know where they were
to go look for them if they didn't come back. Yeah,
and so they came up with names like Europe and Asia. Yeah.
Phoenician sailors. Uh. It's believed they may have used their
proximity to the sun, because Asia might come from a
c u a q for sunrise or east in Europe,
(35:33):
which is of course west, uh, closer to the sunset
if you're standing in the east U e r e
b arab, which means sunset or west. That's a Phoenician word, right,
So it's possible Phoenician sailors named Asia and Europe. There's
other ones to like Europa as a Greek um mythological figure, right, yeah, um,
(35:56):
and then uh, Asia could have been named after a
ruler named um Osios, a Trojan ruler. Yeah, I don't
think that's it. That's the fun thing about things where
it's like no one knows. You can be like that's
not right. Yeah, you read certain you read theories and
some make sense to you and some don't. All right,
I like that. Uh, that's why I don't. I think
(36:19):
math never appealed to me and why it does appeal
to math fans just because it's rules apply and like
there is a right and a wrong. I'm much more
prone to be like to think about something and have
theories about it. Well, you know, they say you read
a lot of fiction, right, They say that people who
read fiction are much more open to um ambiguous resolutions
(36:41):
or non resolutions are lacking closure um. And because you
so frequently get that from fiction, it leads to the question, though,
which is first, are you attracted to fiction because it
usually has resolutions like there? Have you been trained to
accept resolutions like that from appreciating fiction? Well, back to movies.
One of my favorite things which really bothers a lot
of people, or movies with ambiguous endings. If it if
(37:04):
done right. I think it's one of the coolest things
you can do in a movie is to not wrap
it up in a little bow and kind of leave
the end with a decision like what's going on here?
For a sequel? Well maybe, um, I bet math majors
hate that though, now that I think about, you know. Uh.
And then finally, some people still, depending on where you
(37:25):
are in the world, don't recognize all the continents. No.
And this actually makes sense to me because we said earlier,
continent is a body of land surrounded on all sides
by a body of water, right, So that means that
a lot of the continents that we recognize over here
in the West as continents ain't continents. They're incontinents. So
according to some parts of the world, North American, South America,
(37:48):
that's just America, uh, and then Europe and Asia just Eurasia. Yeah,
and that's it. I've got a great pavement T shirt
that has North and America on it and it says
Canada and then Mexico and in the middle it says
pavement and I get a lot of compliments on it,
(38:08):
and I think it's from people thinking I'm making a
statement like the United States is just a bunch of
pavement and like you know, Canada Mexico aren't when in
fact it's just the band. Or maybe they're all just
pavement bands. But you can't tell. You can never tell
these days. Did I tell you I'm Facebook friends with
(38:29):
Bob Nstanovitch from Pavement? You didn't. I tricked him because
we had some mutual friends. Your mom said that you
have to be friends with you on Facebook. It's pretty
great though. I like seeing an insight into these like
people our Revere. He's a big horse racing guy. Oh yeah, yeah,
he likes the pony. Yeah. I don't like going to
the track necessarily, but I like the Big Three. Um,
(38:52):
although I would go to the track whease don't have
them around here? Yeah we don't. Uh, And bring it on.
Send the email about how I'm wrong for going to
the track or wanting here. If you want to know
more about naming continents or geography or any of that jazz,
head on over to how stuff works dot com and
type in geography in the search bar and it will
bring up a mess of great articles. Since I said mess,
(39:15):
it's time for the listener mail. I'm gonna call this
road tripping. We get a lot of emails from people
that listen to us while they're road tripping, Yes, which
is very nice. Hey guys, my husband and I are
adventuring on a road trip from Texas throughout Florida. I've
been addicted to the show for a couple of months now,
but my husband is not listened to a podcast in
(39:37):
his life. I started the driving in the trip, and
he asked if I could make it all the way
to Florida. First of all, Husband, Tom, Yeah, that's pretty
serious stuff. All right, we're in Texas, hunt, can you
make it all the way to Florida. I gotta catch
some z s I need to show. Uh. I said
that if I could listen to stuff you should know,
(39:57):
then I wouldn't stop driving. He saw I regrettably, and
then let me turn an episode on five days into
the trip. Every time we get into the car, he
now says, educate me on stuff I should know. Nice.
Our biggest debates are deciding on which podcast to listen
to next. We literally made it to one of our
destinations and sat in the car for another fifteen minutes
after a three hour drive, just to finish an episode.
(40:19):
It's wonderful. Thank you so much for what you do.
And that is from Kim and Tom Kepler. And since
we are not recording too far out these days, they're
most likely still on their trip. Yeah, enjoy the trip,
be safe, have fun and drive you know every now
and then. Tom. Yeah, really Tom, Let's get it together,
shall we. That's awesome. I hope they've just heard this. Yeah.
(40:40):
If you want to get in touch of this because
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(41:03):
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Hello, everybody, who gets to name continents? That's a great question,
and we answer that on March sixteen. I think this
is a Josh pick really interesting interesting topic because heck
I didn't know who gets to name continents? And now
I do. And if you haven't listened to this one,
give it a listen. Now it's a very very cool
episode Who gets to Name Continents? Welcome to Stuff You
(00:29):
Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So
this is Stuff you should know. Geography. We are in
North America. That's right, Chuck. According to some Yeah, actually
(00:52):
according to everybody. No, not everybody. Oh yeah, we'll get
to it. Okay, we don't want to spoil like basically
the fact of the podcast right already. Uh, this is
as I said about geography. And if this kind of
thing puts your boat, I strongly suggest you go look
at how Maps work or read or listen to that episode. Yeah,
it was a good one. It was. Remember we've found
(01:14):
that like people, other people see the world the map
upside down. Sure, you know, Yeah, it all depends on
how you look at it, agreed. And that actually kind
of comes into play, not just with how you look
at a map and say, oh, I'm on top and
you're on bottom, so therefore you must be developing. Um.
Naming continents is a kind of a what what we
(01:38):
humans are kind of big on names, I guess. Yeah,
we're big on location. We're big on identifying with where
we're from, with where we live, that kind of stuff.
It's a whole in group out group bs, you know. Yeah,
and uh boy, I have to say for a short
ish podcast, which this is going to be, it's not
(01:59):
gonna be our longest one. Let's take an eye break, No,
not yet. I hazard to say that I learned more
in this than ten Barbie podcast than the ten Barbie podcast.
Actually that's not true. I learned a lot in that
one too, that one, but this is just loaded with
interesting stuff because I am not the biggest geography buff.
For someone who is a math or a maps buff, yeah,
(02:21):
well you like for the artistry, right, Yeah? And I
was just ordered a great new map. Um. I wish
I could remember the guy's name, but it was read
an article on this super detailed, awesome map of the
United States, and this guy spent years and years, uh
drawing Arby's all over the country. Not an Army's map
(02:42):
that would be great, though, although you can just follow
your nose. You don't really need it always knows, Yeah,
just like smell the Horsey sauce. I love that stuff.
Although the Arvy sauces by far the superior of the two. Well,
I think you got mixed them. That's the key. Not always.
I'm more of a beef and cheddar chedd to mix
with the Arby's sauce. It's delicious, and the horse sauce,
(03:03):
although I'm okay with horse sauce. Sometimes I haven't had
Arbies and forever. Oh yeah, it's delicious. That I have
a fairly disgusting roast beeep sandwich is so good, right
all right? Uh? Anyway, I ordered this amazing map and
um it hasn't arrived. I can't wait for it to
get here, though. It's gonna Actually I'm gonna frame this one,
I think. Okay, you don't have all your maps framed, No,
(03:27):
you need like a huge, huge wing of your house
and just have every map you have right framed on
the wall. That should be like, I'm starting to see
a pattern here. That would mean I have a huge
room to my house, all to myself, and that's not true, unfortunately.
Do you know how to swing a hammer, don't you? Yeah,
just build another room, Chuck room. I wish my friend so, Chuck.
(03:49):
We were talking about um continents in their names and
all that stuff, right, it turns out that when you
think about the continents names, some of them seem kind
of whole hum or whatever. There's actually some really great
stories behind these things, um and the we should probably
start at the very beginning, way back, way way back
(04:09):
in n even further back than that n million years ago,
if you looked at the planet Earth, you would have
seen that there weren't a bunch of different continents. That
there was actually one huge continent that wore a headman
and had enormous like four arms, named Pangaea. Yeah, what
(04:30):
a stud that continent was. And there was one ocean, uh,
and the name of that ocean was Pantalassa. Yeah, it
wasn't all divided up. It was just one big chunk
of land and surrounded by one massive ocean. Right. And then,
as we'll see later, this is the prominent theory by
the way, right, Okay, we don't like no one was
(04:51):
around back then two million years and go and be
like note to two thousand sixteen. This is the way
things are land wise around here. Um. No. And the
this this theory actually was we've talked about before. It
had to have been in the earthquakes episode. This guy
was awesome. Alfred. Yeah. Back in I think nineteen fifteen
he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Um.
(05:16):
The theory, well, there's some reasons behind it, but the
theory is that you know, the Earth that's made up
these big plates. If you listen to our volcanoes or
earthquake episodes, we talk a lot about that, and over
time these things cracked apart and shifted and drifted. Uh,
and we now have many continents. Right, But that's not
what people thought for a very long time, Like they
(05:39):
guess they just took for granted that the continents were
the way they were. But Alfred Wegner, Um, first of all,
he noticed on a map, like, wow, it looks like
you could really tuck Africa, um, East West Africa into
the eastern part of South America. Really nicely. Yeah. And
in fact, the more I look at it, the whole
thing looks like a puzzle that kind of fits together. Yeah,
(06:01):
if you're if you have a brain. So that's where
he got his idea first, and then he started setting
about proving it or supporting coming up with evidence. How
about that? And um, one of the things he looked
at was coal steams along edges of these puzzle pieces
and found that they were composed of basically the same stuff. Yeah,
like cole in Pennsylvania. Deposits in Pennsylvania were similar or
(06:25):
the same to those in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah,
which shouldn't happen because what coal is is basically compressed
former organisms decaying matter. Right, And so you would think
that these different organisms would have evolved differently on different
continents if they weren't together. And the fact that they
were the same and and decomposed in about the same
(06:49):
amounts suggests that they were all part of the same
land mass at one point. Pretty neat. And then he
also found fossils on different continents that really shouldn't have
been the same. You saw plant fossils and said, wait
a minute, I'm finding this stuff and in places that
are wildly different from one another, these fossils. So maybe
again that lends to my theory. Or how about this
(07:12):
mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains, very similar to the Atlas
Mountains of Morocco. Maybe it was all one big mountainous
mass at one point, and it turns out they probably were.
That's right. What was the name of that mountain range?
Were part of the Central Pangaea Mountains, which apparently formed
through the collision of the supercontinents of Gondwana and uh Laurusia. Yeah,
(07:35):
because and we're we're also um. In addition to this
how stuff works article, you found a great article by
Tia Ghosts, who writes for Live Science and writes some
pretty great stuff. Yeah, this is really good and Ghosts
um is basically just broke it all out, like how
Pangaea formed, what Pangia broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah,
and concise. I like articles. It's not fluff, you know,
(07:58):
just like packed with tacks. Get to it right at
the beginning. Okay, I love it, and don't let up,
don't stop till you have enough. So uh. In the
article they talk about the h the process that spanned
a few hundred million years with a continent called Laurentia.
That's a great continent name part of it, which includes
(08:18):
part of North America and some other micro continents that
formed eventually You're America. That's not bad. It sounds like
a craft work album. Oho, it does totally. Uh You're
America crashes into Gondwana, which I mentioned before and I
liked to. I'm just gonna come and say, I like
these pre current continent continent names, pre white dude names, right,
(08:42):
I guess so, but I think they were named by
white dudes, probably more creative white dudes. Uh, and Gondwana
included Africa, Australia, South America, and uh Indian subcontinent. Yeah.
So like all these it's so hilarious that all of
these um, these ideas of nationalist them in all this. Man,
if you've just gone back a few hundred million years
(09:02):
ago used to be one, you'd be neighbors. Let's all
just lighten up, exactly. And that's actually a thing that
we we talked about in the Maps episode two, is
like when you draw a map, you are you're making
a political statement. It's just there's such a sense of
otherness and togetherness based on geographical distribution. That it's it is,
it's it's interesting. It says a lot about the human psyche. Yeah,
(09:26):
we should do a podcast one day on the human
family tree. Yeah, we're super interesting. Yeah. Uh So, getting
back to the super continent, a couple of hundred million
years ago, Gondwana split off from laur Asia. That's a
good one to fifty million years later Gondwana broke up.
(09:47):
Uh And then they've had a sixty million years ago
North America split off from Eurasia. And these are all
the prominent theories. Again. Yeah, well they follow the continental
drift theory. And I mean it's not like they're just like,
let's say, let's say the Indian subcontinent broke off from
this continent. It's like, no, they they have gone through
(10:10):
and done the geological comparisons and have seen like when
this basically matched up to that, and that's what they've
come up with. It's pretty astounding that you can do
that if you have that enough patients in brains. Uh So. Interestingly,
they talked a little bit in the article about a
climate and what it might have been like back then
and maybe the interior of this large supercontinent was completely
(10:33):
dry because it was surrounded by mountains. Uh. Maybe parts
of what is now North America used to be like
the Amazon rainforest, like a super lush jungle, right, it
would be kind of cool. Yeah, but if once you
got into the interior, when you crossed the what was
it the Central Um the Central Pangaea mountains, Yeah, like
you were just you Apparently there was a ring of
(10:56):
mountains that that ran around the middle of the whole
Pangaea in the interior, and um, it just produced rain
shadows that kept rain out from the interior of the continent,
So it would have just been just a totally arid desert.
Pretty cool, It is cool. Uh, And of course this
isn't over. They point out in the article that things
(11:17):
are still changing. Um, Australias is creeping up on Asia. Yeah,
very slowly, of course. Yeah. Pretty cool and uh, parsh,
part of Eastern Africa is just trying to get out
of the rest of Africa. Yeah, Eastern Africa is staying
so long. I'm I'm going off on my own. I'm
gonna seek my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this
(11:40):
is over the course of hundreds of millions of years,
so you will likely not be wrung unless the singularity
happens soon. Yeah, exactly, then you may and you can
be like, this is pretty cool. The people of Sydney
will have a docking party with the people of Hong Kong.
I love that. Uh so you want to take a
little break here, then we'll talk a little bit about
these names. Yes, so, Chuck. That is the theory of
(12:25):
continental drifting. The whole idea is that, um, there's a
layer of magma and then on top of it are
the continental plates, and they're constantly shifting and moving again,
albeit very slowly, and when they do, they expose a
fissure and you've got volcanic activity, or two plates slide
up against one another, or one subducts below the other
one and you have earthquakes. So there's a lot of
(12:47):
evidence that continental drift is real and that things like
hollow earth are probably not correct. Probably have you noticed
every time we do any kind of geography, especially when
we mentioned plate tectonics, the the hollow earth people come
out of the woodwork and just send us emails and
leave comments and yeah, man, they're they're they're they're like
(13:07):
the high freak tost corncert people, they're like really active
in the comments section. Yeah, Froto in the Gang. Oh wait,
that's Middle Earth different. Uh. And Pangea, we should mention,
is Greek for all lands or all earth. So that's
a great name for the original super continent, right. And
Panthelossa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it. And
(13:29):
Pangea was what's considered a true continent. We should say
this because they'll come up later, but a true continent
is a land mass surrounded by ocean on all sides.
I'm looking at you, Asia in Europe. I know, you know,
I know in fact part of Actually I think you
sent this idea, didn't you. Yeah, what the whole idea
(13:52):
for the show was from you. But not too long ago,
I was, I think Emily asked me. She was like,
what is Russia? Is that part of Is it Asian?
Or is it European? And I was like, well, I
don't know, Asia, let's go look, well it depends part
of it. Well yeah, part of it then same with Turkey.
(14:12):
Is is split and uh, you know, some people identify
with Europe, some people identify with Asia. That's why the
term Eurasia. Well, no, I got that, and I got
it from this article, but I didn't know that like
Russia itself was split, you know, Yeah, that's what it says.
Like I could see like um uh Kazakhstan or something
(14:33):
being like straddling the sides, but I didn't realize like
Russia itself was split some that's pretty interesting, maybe some Russians.
All right, in tell us how you identify? Yeah, are
you Eurasian, Asian, European? Which one? Yeah, because obviously a
lot of these lines are drawn culturally. Um right, because
(14:54):
their mountain ranges that that separated. That's not I mean,
it's a geographical border, but not when you're speaking in continents,
it's not incontinents. Should we tell them Jerry's bad joke? Yes,
Before we started, Jerry said, I guess we're technically all incontinent,
and I said, no, technically we're all on continent. And
(15:16):
then she said or within continent, and none of the
three things that we said. We're funny. That's that's how
things happened before we hit record. Yeah, that's why we
don't release this stuff beforehand. It's usually much better than that.
So let's get down to this chuck, all right, let's
talk about naming continents, right, all right. Apparently with continents,
if you are prominently involved with its discovery, you typically
(15:42):
get some sort of naming rights. Yeah, and a lot
of these are very uh. Just conjecture goes into maybe
who name these and who didn't? Um. One big exception
is Antarctica because it's new ish. It's like the Pluto. Yeah,
as far as when people discovered it. Uh. In fact,
you can go to the New York Times and read
(16:03):
in uh nineteen o four about the naming of Antarctica
if you were so inclined to be bored to tears. No,
I love those old articles. I like a lot of
them too, Like remember the subway accident where people got
shot out of the subway tunnel that was being dug. Yeah,
that was an interesting article. This one is it's bad?
Oh did you read it? No? Just this enough? Okay. Well,
(16:26):
a man named Sir John Murray was a great exploring oceanographer. Uh.
He was part of the famous HMS Challenger expedition, which,
for my money, is the greatest of all ocean going explorations.
The Challenger. Yeah, man, sixty nine thousand nautical miles. Unbelievable,
(16:46):
if you look at the map of the this thing
of the route, it was just it's staggering. Do you
have a map of it? I don't own one, but
I looked it up today, which is pretty neat. And
I never knew what HM stood for. Did you know
that Her Majesty's ship? Yeah, I never knew that. It's
just like HMS. The there's another one that I don't like,
r MS. I don't know. And uh, what is the
(17:09):
USS just United States Ship? I don't know. I never
thought about that either. Probably probably someone from the Navy
could maybe point us in the right direction. So anyway,
John Murray, even though the expedition, the Challenger expedition did
not they kind of buzzed Antarctica. They didn't actually see
(17:29):
the land, but they came close. But he would later
go on to do like, actually go to Antarctica. Okay,
I was gonna say, like, then, how did he know
anything about it? I guess his interest was Pete. He
saw icebergs and stuff. I'm coming back, um because this
place is cold. He's come. I'm coming for you, Taro
and Tiro uh so. In nineteen o four, um, he
(17:51):
actually was able to name it as a combination of
aunt opposite an Arctic, the North Pole, so the opposite
of the North Pole the South Pole pretty neat? And
which one has penguins? And so the Antarctica has penguins
and the North Pole doesn't. Isn't that right? I don't remember,
but that's like, that's the case, right, doesn't one have
(18:12):
one and the other one doesn't? I know, we got
a lot of emails. I don't know why I'm doing
this again. I might as well just hook a car
battery up to my nipples or something. It'll get the
same I got you on that one. Yeah, that was good. Um,
So let's talk about America because I just realized something
to check. This may be played in um geography classes
(18:35):
in like middle school and stuff. So if that's the case,
I want to go ahead and apologize to all the
middle schoolers who just had to hear me say that
that's okay, and don't don't try that at home. It
doesn't matter what grade you're in or how how long
out of school you are, agreed, So America the name America.
If you went to took Civics class or geography and
(18:58):
elementary school and high school, you probably got the story.
That Amerigo Vespucci was. It was named after him. European explorer. Yeah,
that guy has been slandered, maligned, maybe worse than Columbus
even apparently he had a lot of rivals back in Italy,
and um they worked very hard to sully his name,
(19:21):
and it was quite effective over the centuries, to the
point where there was a big, almost a revival in
in hatred for America Vespucci and a lot of really
um uh inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary
propaganda against him. So so what's the idea that he
(19:44):
ripped off Columbus. Well, that's not It depends on your
definition of ripped off. So I don't have the impression
that he ever said I discovered America. He said Columbus
discovered America. But the distinction between in Vespucci and Columbus
is that Columbus didn't realize that he hadn't hit already,
(20:06):
that he hadn't hit undiscovered or previously undiscovered by European land. Right.
He thought that he had just found another route to
the West Indies. Apparently, until he died, Vespucci was the
one to say no Europeans ever seen this before. Please,
that was great. No, it wasn't. I like it. Um.
(20:26):
And so he is the one who supposedly this continent
was named after because he was the one to recognize
it as previously uncharted land. Yeah, and it's on record. Um.
In fifteen o seven, a cartographer, a German cartographer named Martina.
Our two favorite accents, Yeah, Italian and Germany. Two are
(20:49):
the only two you can still do these days and
not get taken a desk barce. Uh. He very famously
made a map that was a big effort in France.
Uh in the fifteen hundreds too, really bring the modern
map into the forefront and like these old maps like
these were made by a bunch of dummies who didn't
(21:11):
know anything. So let's really expand our geographic knowledge. And yeah,
this has when like mercater started working. Yeah. So this,
this woodcut map that um Valtzemula made was the first
to depict a separate Western hemisphere, the first to show
the Pacific Ocean as a separate thing. Oh, this guy,
he was here, He's like, get that sea monster off
(21:31):
of there. I'd leave a sea monster just for fun,
but he um, it's an easter egg there. Yeah, there
was one of these maps. There is one of these
maps still uh existing, And in two thousand three, the
Library of Congress bought it with the donation from Discovery Channel.
Oh is that a right? Apparently for ten million bucks.
(21:53):
It was in a castle for three and fifty years
in southern Germany, and they're like, wow, let's buy it
and display it. I read about a guy who found
an original copy of the Declaration of Independence folded up
behind a painting that he bought at a yard sale.
That four dollars amazing, and I think he sold it
for like a few million, and then Norman Mailer bought
(22:14):
it for like eight million. But yeah, it's somebody just
found the Declaration of It and it's I guess in
much the same way. That's amazing. Yeah, I got nothing
in my attic. I even looked, Oh you did look.
I say, you don't know, but I guess you do.
Some old doors doors can be worth Yeah, the door
from the early nineteen thirties. Yeah, people love those things
(22:36):
that go crazy for him. I think it's neat. But
you know, I wanted like a stash of gold bullion
or something like Prohibition era money. Yeah, my house, and
where's your house beelt like nineteen thirty Prohibition. Yeah, I
guess so maybe some old booze would be delicious. So um,
(22:56):
the reason this map is significant by is that it
says America like North South America are designated America by
this map. And this this map that is in question
was from when was it fifteen o seven? And um,
somebody said, hey, buddy, um, why did you call it America?
(23:21):
And he said, I did it in honor of Americo Vespucci.
So the first guy who really uses the word America
is on record apparently is saying he named it America
after Americo Vespucci. But a lot of people said that's
a lie, it's a historical fallacy, it's inaccurate. One guy
went so far as to say that Amerigo Vespucci actually
(23:42):
changed his name after America was named, and that his
real name was um uh Giovanni Vespucci, no Alberigo Vespucci,
and that he changed his name to Amerrigo from Alberigo
to conveniently with the naming of America. Right. Um, But apparently,
(24:03):
and this is this again, this is contemporary stuff. People said,
you changed your name, you big liar um. And then
in like the nineteen seventies. I think some historian revived
it and like that was the idea, But somebody else
went back and apparently found his baptismal certificate that lists
him as Amerigo Vespucci. The thing is is that still
(24:24):
doesn't mean that America was named after Vespucci Chock. There
was a long um tradition among cartographers that had already
been established by the time America was discovered to name
new lands. If you were naming it after an explorer,
you named it after the explorer's last name. If you
want to name it after royalty, you named it after
the royalty's first name. So think about it. Georgia um uh,
(24:50):
Virginia um, and then Columbus or Hudson, like the explorer's
last name, a royalty's first name is how you names
thinks they would have named America Vespucci Land the United
States of Vespucci exactly rather than America. Yeah, that'd be great.
But if it's not named after Vespucci, then where did
America come from? Well there are some theories. One is
(25:12):
that it was named after the Americ kick America americ
ki it's a Mayan word. Actually, Yes, mountains in Nicaragua
and um, this is where my money goes, you think
so so Um, people think that Columbus and Vespucci both
went to these mountains after American natives said, Hey, there's
gold in them dar Hills, which of course is really
(25:34):
all they wanted anyway. Well, that's not true. They wanted
to discover new lands, but hopefully new lands with gold
and people you could subjugate. Um, so that they went
to there, and then it was named after those mountains. Yeah,
not bad. And did you say both Columbus and Vespucci
supposedly traveled to these mountains. Yeah, because they wanted the gold, right,
(25:55):
So that's a pretty good reason to call it that.
And um, when you combine that with the evidence that
a cartographer likely would have named it Vespucci Land rather
than America after America, Um, it's entirely possible that America
is actually named after a indigenous Mayan word for some mountains.
(26:17):
I think it means place of wind in Mayan. Interesting. Uh.
Another theory, and this one I don't think it's very
I don't think it holds water. But there was a
British Royal rep named Richard Americ A. M. E. R.
I k E and supposedly explorer John Cabot became the
first well this isn't supposed in four seven, he definitely
(26:39):
became the first to sail under the British flag to
the New World. And apparently when he got back he
got a big wad of cash from America and he
was like, Hey, I'm gonna name the country in continent
after you. Then, but that there's really nothing to substantiate that, right,
and then Cabot retired to make some pretty decent butter
(27:00):
Oh yeah, so that him, I think, So okay, surely
it's him. Still, maybe I need several hundred years old.
Do you want to take a break again, Yeah, let's break,
and then we'll talk about our favorite continent, Australia. So, Chuck,
(27:34):
you were telling everybody our favorite continent is Australia. Yeah,
that's what Lex Luthor Gene Hackman is less. Lex Luthor
wanted in Superman. He wanted Australia to his own or
Superman too. Um, yeah, I remember Electric The three uh
the three uh Terrance uh Terrence uh Stamp in the
(27:58):
gang came down and he and like Luthor was working
in cahoots with them and they were like, well, what
do you want in return for delivering Superman? He said Australia,
I don't remember that man. Gina Hacker was great. I
saw this the beginning of a movie with Robin Williams
and Walter math Ou. Robin Williams was like a baby
at the time, but like they foil a robbery and
(28:19):
like become heroes, I think. And then they yeah, they
go to like a survivalist camp or something. I think
it's called Survivors. I think. So I saw like the
first ten minutes, but I was like, man, there's no one,
no one on the planet like Walter math Ou anymore.
Like he was awesome. And then I was like, god,
I can't imagine Robin Williams and Walter math how working together?
(28:44):
And then didn't they do like Moscow on the Hudson too?
Wasn't that one? And then I don't went on, I
don't think math that was in that one. Oh he wasn't.
I thought he was. Maybe it wasn't. I could be
wrong because I never saw it. Those early Robin Williams
movies were great. Recording to Garp, I never saw that
one that was by the guy who did Sighter House
Rules right, John Irving. He was pretty great. Um, but
(29:05):
then it made me think about Couch Trip. You remember
that movie with Dana k Royd and Walter math I
didn't see it. Was it good? Yes, it was so good.
I'm I haven't seen it in decades, but I guarantee
it still holds up. I mean it's math Owen Ackroyd. Yeah,
one's like a con man pretending to be crazy and
the other one actually is crazy. Who's the only person
(29:28):
who can sense that this guy's a con man? You know,
I've never been this. You know, I'm sorry. He's a
con man pretending to not be crazy. That makes more sense.
It's great. I've never been the hugest danac roy guy. Uh.
He definitely is Danakroyd. Dana Kroyd and I don't dislike him,
but Walter math I was providing a nice slow burning
(29:49):
distraction over here. If you don't like Dana Kroyd, you'll
still like Couch Trip. Yeah, em boy, the odd couple
math Owen Lemon. I don't know if I ever saw
that original one. So good? All right, that's called movie
Sidebar with Josh and Chuck, and that started with Geene
Heckman We didn't mean to talk about him. Oh I
love Jeane hack He needs to unretire, is what I'm saying. Like,
(30:11):
go'll make another movie your swan song. That's what I say. Alright,
we own you, Gene Hackman. Australia, which is what Gene
Hackman is, like Luthor wanted. Um, it is a bit
of a mystery to most. People will point to Matthew
Flinders in two as the nam er because he was
(30:32):
the first to circumnavigate it and create that map, and
Australis means southern, so it all makes sense, right yeah,
back in back in the day. Um, the cartographers are
already aware of Australia before Matthew Flinders circumnavigated it, but
they called it the Terra Australis, which is the southern land.
Matthew Flinders is like I like the sign of Australia more,
(30:54):
it's more pleasing to the ear, apparently, is how it
was put right, Um, the thing is is and for
a very long time that's how Australia was named as
far as anyone was concerned. But then Australia's National Library
discovered a way older map from before eighteen o two
from fifty five. Yeah, from a German astronomer name Siriaco
(31:16):
yakub sum Barth. That's a great name, great name, not
at all German if you ask me, except for the
yakub thing, uh um Barth is but that's Siriaco. Definitely
doesn't look German. But yeah, fifty five, that's like way
way before. Yeah, and apparently there's maps that are even
slightly older than that around and one of them might
(31:36):
have been produced by Mercator himself. Uh that also refer
to the area around Australia as Australia something so not
everyone was referring to it exclusively as the Terra Australias.
But it's probably it's probable that the Syriac go yakub
zoom Barth is the one who first labeled it Australia.
(31:59):
All right, we should do a podcast on the history
of Australia. Sure, super interesting, starring Hugh Jackman for the
World War Two part. By the way, when I mentioned
Hugh Jackman is P. T. Barnum, he is in fact
playing P. T. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of movie.
But right right, either didn't know or I subliminally knew,
(32:20):
but I didn't overtly know. I thought later on after
I found that out, that you've just been messing with
me the whole episode. Well, I apologize for assuming that
that's all right. I either didn't know, or maybe I
had read that and just forgot or something because you
said it like three times yeah, or maybe I should
get into cast. If you didn't know, then hats off
(32:41):
to you because that was prescient. So now let's move
on to Oh did you see some of the suggestions
we got though? Oh? For P. T. Barnum, Yeah, I
think that my favorite one was John c Riley. He'd
be an odd John c. Or he'd be an odd P. T. Barnum,
but he could totally do it. Yeah. I saw one.
Someone said Tom Hardy, who like he'd be great in anything,
(33:04):
but he's in everything right now, right now. And then
someone sent cole Meny. It was sort of like the
the names, like I know the name, who is it?
That he's like the English John c Riley. He sort
of looks like him. He's older though, right or he
may be Irish. Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah, yeah,
I know who he is. They kind of look alike
(33:24):
a bit Cole mean, he's got a little more dapperness
to him, a little more suave. Nois maybe, well, there's
nothing about John c Riley the Swave. Have you seen
we need to talk about Kevin. Oh, you'll love it.
The movie It's a sleeper with John c Riley and
Till the Swinton about um, they have a kid who's
(33:45):
a bad kid until the Swinton's having to deal with it. Interesting,
really great movie. It's on Netflix right now. I love
John c Riley, so he's kind of a prop in
the background for this. It's mostly Till the Swinton, and
I'm sure they appreciate hearing that he knows Okay, there's
no way he played that role and doesn't. Now. I
(34:06):
never knew we could talk so much about movies in
this one. I didn't see that coming. Um, so let's
talk about the other continents, um, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Basically,
what it boils down to with the rest of these
is they were likely named by sailors who had to
call them something. Yeah, probably um, and they're like Africa
(34:28):
has a few different contenders that are pretty good. Um.
There's a a afrak people who are in the northern
part of Africa. There there Berber tribe not a bad source. Yeah,
makes sense. Um. And then apparently at PreK in Greek
or a preca in Latin means sunny, right, yeah, makes
(34:50):
sense to uh. And then there's uh so who who knows?
The point is there's no documentation for when Africa was
for named, and it was most likely Africa, Europe and
Asia were named by seafaring folks who were like, we're
going this place, and they needed a name for this
(35:12):
place so they their families would know where they were
to go look for them if they didn't come back. Yeah,
and so they came up with names like Europe and Asia. Yeah.
Phoenician sailors. Uh. It's believed they may have used their
proximity to the sun, because Asia might come from a
c u a q for sunrise or east in Europe,
(35:33):
which is of course west, uh, closer to the sunset
if you're standing in the east U e r e
b arab, which means sunset or west. That's a Phoenician word, right,
So it's possible Phoenician sailors named Asia and Europe. There's
other ones to like Europa as a Greek um mythological figure, right, yeah, um,
(35:56):
and then uh, Asia could have been named after a
ruler named um Osios, a Trojan ruler. Yeah, I don't
think that's it. That's the fun thing about things where
it's like no one knows. You can be like that's
not right. Yeah, you read certain you read theories and
some make sense to you and some don't. All right,
I like that. Uh, that's why I don't. I think
(36:19):
math never appealed to me and why it does appeal
to math fans just because it's rules apply and like
there is a right and a wrong. I'm much more
prone to be like to think about something and have
theories about it. Well, you know, they say you read
a lot of fiction, right, They say that people who
read fiction are much more open to um ambiguous resolutions
(36:41):
or non resolutions are lacking closure um. And because you
so frequently get that from fiction, it leads to the question, though,
which is first, are you attracted to fiction because it
usually has resolutions like there? Have you been trained to
accept resolutions like that from appreciating fiction? Well, back to movies.
One of my favorite things which really bothers a lot
of people, or movies with ambiguous endings. If it if
(37:04):
done right. I think it's one of the coolest things
you can do in a movie is to not wrap
it up in a little bow and kind of leave
the end with a decision like what's going on here?
For a sequel? Well maybe, um, I bet math majors
hate that though, now that I think about, you know. Uh.
And then finally, some people still, depending on where you
(37:25):
are in the world, don't recognize all the continents. No.
And this actually makes sense to me because we said earlier,
continent is a body of land surrounded on all sides
by a body of water, right, So that means that
a lot of the continents that we recognize over here
in the West as continents ain't continents. They're incontinents. So
according to some parts of the world, North American, South America,
(37:48):
that's just America, uh, and then Europe and Asia just Eurasia. Yeah,
and that's it. I've got a great pavement T shirt
that has North and America on it and it says
Canada and then Mexico and in the middle it says
pavement and I get a lot of compliments on it,
(38:08):
and I think it's from people thinking I'm making a
statement like the United States is just a bunch of
pavement and like you know, Canada Mexico aren't when in
fact it's just the band. Or maybe they're all just
pavement bands. But you can't tell. You can never tell
these days. Did I tell you I'm Facebook friends with
(38:29):
Bob Nstanovitch from Pavement? You didn't. I tricked him because
we had some mutual friends. Your mom said that you
have to be friends with you on Facebook. It's pretty
great though. I like seeing an insight into these like
people our Revere. He's a big horse racing guy. Oh yeah, yeah,
he likes the pony. Yeah. I don't like going to
the track necessarily, but I like the Big Three. Um,
(38:52):
although I would go to the track whease don't have
them around here? Yeah we don't. Uh, And bring it on.
Send the email about how I'm wrong for going to
the track or wanting here. If you want to know
more about naming continents or geography or any of that jazz,
head on over to how stuff works dot com and
type in geography in the search bar and it will
bring up a mess of great articles. Since I said mess,
(39:15):
it's time for the listener mail. I'm gonna call this
road tripping. We get a lot of emails from people
that listen to us while they're road tripping, Yes, which
is very nice. Hey guys, my husband and I are
adventuring on a road trip from Texas throughout Florida. I've
been addicted to the show for a couple of months now,
but my husband is not listened to a podcast in
(39:37):
his life. I started the driving in the trip, and
he asked if I could make it all the way
to Florida. First of all, Husband, Tom, Yeah, that's pretty
serious stuff. All right, we're in Texas, hunt, can you
make it all the way to Florida. I gotta catch
some z s I need to show. Uh. I said
that if I could listen to stuff you should know,
(39:57):
then I wouldn't stop driving. He saw I regrettably, and
then let me turn an episode on five days into
the trip. Every time we get into the car, he
now says, educate me on stuff I should know. Nice.
Our biggest debates are deciding on which podcast to listen
to next. We literally made it to one of our
destinations and sat in the car for another fifteen minutes
after a three hour drive, just to finish an episode.
(40:19):
It's wonderful. Thank you so much for what you do.
And that is from Kim and Tom Kepler. And since
we are not recording too far out these days, they're
most likely still on their trip. Yeah, enjoy the trip,
be safe, have fun and drive you know every now
and then. Tom. Yeah, really Tom, Let's get it together,
shall we. That's awesome. I hope they've just heard this. Yeah.
(40:40):
If you want to get in touch of this because
you love us, on a road trip or you, um whatever,
you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and as always,
joined us at home on the web. Stuff you Should
Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
(41:03):
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
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