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