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Speaker 1: this Friday. Yeah, so go get them be there or
Speaker 1: be square Houston and Denver. Welcome to you Stuff you
Speaker 1: should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey you,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there. So this is stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. Geography. We are in North America, that's right, Chuck.
Speaker 1: According to some yeah, actually according to everybody. No, not everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get to it, Okay, we don't want to spoil
Speaker 1: like basically the fact of the podcast right already. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is as I said about geography, and if this
Speaker 1: kind of thing quotes your boat, I strongly suggest you
Speaker 1: go look at how maps work or read or listen
Speaker 1: to that episode. Yeah, it was a good one. It was.
Speaker 1: Remember we've found that like people, other people see the
Speaker 1: world the map upside down. Sure, you know, yeah, it
Speaker 1: all depends on how you look at it, agreed, And
Speaker 1: that actually kind of comes into play, not just with
Speaker 1: how you look at a map and say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: on top and you're on bottom, so therefore you must
Speaker 1: be developing. Um Naming continents is a kind of a well, well,
Speaker 1: we 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 the whole in group, out group, Yes, 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 gonna
Speaker 1: be our longest one, let's take an head 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: article on this super detailed, awesome map of the United States,
Speaker 1: and this guy spent years and years, uh drawing Arby's
Speaker 1: all over the country. Not an Army's map. That would
Speaker 1: be great though, although you can just follow your nose,
Speaker 1: you don't really need it always knows. Yeah, just like
Speaker 1: smell the Horsey sauce. I love that stuff, although the
Speaker 1: Arvy sauces by far the superior of the two. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you got to mix them. That's the key.
Speaker 1: Not always. I'm more of a beef and cheddar cheddar
Speaker 1: mix with the Arby's sauce it's delicious, and the horses sauce,
Speaker 1: although I'm okay with horse sauce. Sometimes I haven't had
Speaker 1: Arbies and forever. Yeah, it's delicious. That disgusting roast beech
Speaker 1: sandwich is so good. All right? Uh? Anyway, I ordered
Speaker 1: this amazing map, and um it hasn't arrived. I can't
Speaker 1: wait for it to get here, though. It's gonna Actually
Speaker 1: I'm gonna frame this one, I think. Okay, you don't
Speaker 1: have all your maps framed. No, you need like a huge,
Speaker 1: huge wing of your house and just have every map
Speaker 1: you have right framed on the wall. I should be like,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to see a pattern here. That would mean
Speaker 1: I have a huge room to my house, all to myself,
Speaker 1: and that's not true. Unfortunately. You know how to swing
Speaker 1: a hammer, don't you. Yeah, just build another room, Chuck room,
Speaker 1: I wish my friend so Chuck. We were talking about
Speaker 1: um continents in their names and all that stuff, right,
Speaker 1: It turns out that when you think about the continents names,
Speaker 1: some of them seem kind of whole hum or whatever.
Speaker 1: There's actually some really great stories behind these things, um
Speaker 1: and the We should probably start at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: way back way way back in even further back than
Speaker 1: that million years ago. If you looked at the planet Earth,
Speaker 1: you would have seen that there weren't a bunch of
Speaker 1: different continents, that there was actually one huge continent that
Speaker 1: wore a headman and had enormous like four arms named Pangaea.
Speaker 1: What a stud that continent was. And there was one ocean.
Speaker 1: Uh and the name of that ocean was Panthalassa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't all divided up. It was just one big
Speaker 1: chunk of land and surrounded by one massive ocean. Right.
Speaker 1: And then as we'll see later, this is the prominent
Speaker 1: theory by the way, Right, Okay, we don't like, no
Speaker 1: one was around back then. Two million years are going
Speaker 1: and be like note to two thousand sixteen. This is
Speaker 1: the way things are land wise around here. Um. No.
Speaker 1: And the this this theory actually was we've talked about
Speaker 1: it before. It had to have been in the earthquakes episode.
Speaker 1: This guy was awesome. Alfred Wegener. Yeah, back in I
Speaker 1: think nineteen fifteen he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. Um. The theory, well, there's some reasons
Speaker 1: behind it. But the theory is that you know, the
Speaker 1: Earth that's made up these big plates. If you listen
Speaker 1: to our volcanoes or earthquake episodes, we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about that, and over time these things cracked apart and
Speaker 1: shifted and drifted. Uh. And we now have many continents, right,
Speaker 1: But that's not what people thought for a very long time,
Speaker 1: Like they guess they just took for granted that the
Speaker 1: continents were the way they were. But Alfred Wegner Um,
Speaker 1: first of all, he noticed on a map, like, wow,
Speaker 1: it looks like you could really tuck Africa, um, east
Speaker 1: or West Africa into the eastern part of South America
Speaker 1: really nicely. Yeah. And in fact, the more I look
Speaker 1: at it, the whole thing looks like a puzzle that
Speaker 1: kind of fits together. Yeah, if you're if you have
Speaker 1: a brain. So that's where he got his idea first,
Speaker 1: and then he started setting about proving it or supporting
Speaker 1: coming up with evidence. How about that? And um, one
Speaker 1: of the things he looked at was coal steams along
Speaker 1: edges of these puzzle pieces and found that they were
Speaker 1: composed of basically the same stuff. Yeah, like cole in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Deposits in Pennsylvania were similar or the same to those
Speaker 1: in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah, which shouldn't
Speaker 1: happen because what coal is its basically compressed former organisms
Speaker 1: decaying matter, right, And so you would think that these
Speaker 1: different organisms would have evolved differently on different continents. If
Speaker 1: they weren't together, and the fact that they were the
Speaker 1: same and and decomposed in about the same amounts suggests
Speaker 1: that they were all part of the same land mass
Speaker 1: at one point. Pretty neat. And then he also found
Speaker 1: fossils on different continents that really shouldn't have been the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he saw plant fossils and said, wait a minute, I'm
Speaker 1: finding this stuff in places that are wildly different from
Speaker 1: one another, these fossils. So maybe again that lends to
Speaker 1: my theory. Or how about this mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains,
Speaker 1: very similar to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was all one big mountainous mass at one point, And
Speaker 1: it turns out they probably were. What was the name
Speaker 1: of that mountain range were part of the Central Pangaea Mountains,
Speaker 1: which apparently forms through the collision of the supercontinents of
Speaker 1: gond Anna and uh Laurussia. Yeah, because and we're we're
Speaker 1: also um. In addition to this how stuff works article,
Speaker 1: you found a great article by Tia Ghosts, who writes
Speaker 1: for Live Science and write some pretty great stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really good, and Ghosts um Is basically just
Speaker 1: broke it all out, like how Pangia formed what Pangia
Speaker 1: broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah and concise.
Speaker 1: I like articles. It's not fluff, you know, right, just
Speaker 1: like packed with get to it right at the beginning. Okay,
Speaker 1: I love it and don't let up, don't stop to
Speaker 1: have enough. So uh. In the article they talk about
Speaker 1: the uh the process that spanned a few hundred million
Speaker 1: years with a continent called Laurentia. That's a great continent
Speaker 1: name part of it, which includes part of North America
Speaker 1: and some other micro continents that formed eventually You're America.
Speaker 1: That's not bad. It sounds like a craft work album
Speaker 1: who it does totally. Uh You're America crashes into Gondwana,
Speaker 1: which I mentioned before I liked to. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: come and say, I like these these pre current continent
Speaker 1: continent names, pre white dude names, right, I guess so,
Speaker 1: but I think they were named by white dudes, probably
Speaker 1: more creative white dudes. Uh and A. Gondwana included Africa, Australia,
Speaker 1: South America, and uh Indian subcontinent. Yeah. So like all
Speaker 1: these it's so hilarious that all of these, um, these
Speaker 1: ideas of nationalism and all this man if you've just
Speaker 1: gone back a few hundred million years ago, you'd be neighbors.
Speaker 1: Let's all just lighten up, exactly. And that's actually a
Speaker 1: thing that we we talked about in the Maps episode two,
Speaker 1: is like when you draw a map, you're 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, and 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 had sixty million years ago North
Speaker 1: America split off from Eurasia. And these are all the
Speaker 1: prominent theories again. Yeah, well they follow the continental drift theory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's not like they're just like, let's say,
Speaker 1: let's say the Indian subcontinent broke off from this continent.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, they they have gone through and done
Speaker 1: the geological comparisons and have seen like when this basically
Speaker 1: matched up to that, and that's what they've come up with.
Speaker 1: It's pretty astounding that you didn't do that if you
Speaker 1: have that enough patients. Yeah, in brains. Uh. So Interestingly
Speaker 1: they talked to a little bit in the article about
Speaker 1: a 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, like you
Speaker 1: were just you apparently there was a ring of mountains
Speaker 1: that that ran around the middle of the whole Pangaea
Speaker 1: in the interior, and um, it just produced rain shadows
Speaker 1: 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 staying so long.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going off on my own. I'm gonna seek
Speaker 1: my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this is over
Speaker 1: the course of hundreds of millions of years, so you
Speaker 1: will likely not be around unless the Singularity happens soon. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: then you may and you can be like, this is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. The people of Sydney will have a docking
Speaker 1: party with the people of Hong Kong. I love that.
Speaker 1: Uh So you want to take a little break here
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk a little bit about these names. Yes, so, Chuck.
Speaker 1: That is the theory of continental drifting. The whole idea
Speaker 1: is that, um, there's a layer of magma and then
Speaker 1: on top of it are the continental plates and they're
Speaker 1: constantly shifting and moving again, albeit very slowly, and when
Speaker 1: they do, they expose a fissure and you've got volcanic activity,
Speaker 1: or two plates slide up against one another, or one
Speaker 1: subducts below the other one and you have earthquakes. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of evidence that continental drift is real
Speaker 1: and that things like hollow Earth are probably not correct.
Speaker 1: Probably have you noticed every time we do any kind
Speaker 1: of geography, especially when we mentioned plate tectonics, that the
Speaker 1: hollow Earth people come out of the woodwork and just
Speaker 1: send us emails and leave comments, and yeah, man, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're they're like the high frue tost Corncer people.
Speaker 1: They're like really active in the comments section proto in
Speaker 1: the gang. Oh wait, that's Middle Earth different uh. And Pangia,
Speaker 1: we should mention, is Greek for all lands or all earth.
Speaker 1: So that's a great name for the original super continent, right,
Speaker 1: And Panthalassa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it.
Speaker 1: And Pangia was what's considered a true continent. And we
Speaker 1: should say this because they'll come up, But a true
Speaker 1: continent is a landmask 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 asa. Let's go look, well it depends part
Speaker 1: of it. Well, yeah, part of it. Then same with
Speaker 1: Turkey is is split and uh, you know, some people
Speaker 1: identify with Europe, some people identify with Asia. That's why
Speaker 1: the term eur Asia. Well, no, I got that, and
Speaker 1: I got it from this article. But I didn't know
Speaker 1: that like Russia itself was split, you know, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what it says. Like I could see like um uh
Speaker 1: Kazakh stand or something being like straddling the sides, but
Speaker 1: I didn't realize like Russia itself was split. Some that's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, maybe some Russians. All right, in tell us
Speaker 1: how you identify? Are you Eurasian, Asian, European? Which one? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because obviously a lot of these lines are drawn culturally.
Speaker 1: Um right, because their mountain ranges that that separated. That's
Speaker 1: not I mean, it's a geographical border, but not when
Speaker 1: you're speaking in continents, it's not incontinents. Should we tell
Speaker 1: them Jerry's bad joke? Before we started, Jerry said, I
Speaker 1: guess we're technically all incontinent, And I said, no, technically
Speaker 1: we're all on continent. And then she said, or within continent,
Speaker 1: and none of the three things that we said. We're funny.
Speaker 1: That's that's how things happen before 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 this 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 named these and who didn't? Um. One big exception
Speaker 1: is Antarctica because it's new ish. It's like the Poluto. 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 four about the naming of Antarctica if
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: That was an interesting article. This one is it's bad?
Speaker 1: Did you read it? No? Just the seno? 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 this thing and
Speaker 1: the route, it was just it's staggering. Do you have
Speaker 1: a map of it? I don't own one, but I
Speaker 1: looked it up today. It's pretty neat. And I never
Speaker 1: knew HMS stood for Did you know that Her Majesty's Ship? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never knew that. Oh, it's just like HMS. The
Speaker 1: there's another one that I don't like, r MS I
Speaker 1: don't know. And uh, what is the USS just United
Speaker 1: States ship? I don't know. I never thought about that either.
Speaker 1: Probably probably someone from the Navy could maybe point us
Speaker 1: in the right direction. So anyway, John Murray, even though
Speaker 1: the expedition, the Challenger expedition did not they kind of
Speaker 1: buzzed Antarctica. Uh, they didn't actually see the land, but
Speaker 1: they came close. But he would later go on to
Speaker 1: do like actually go to Antarctica. Okay, I was gonna say, like, then,
Speaker 1: how did he know anything about it. I guess his
Speaker 1: interest was Pete. He saw icebergs and stuff. I'm coming back, um,
Speaker 1: because this place is cold. He's come. I'm coming for you,
Speaker 1: Taro and tiro uh So. In nineteen o four, UM
Speaker 1: he actually was able to name it as a combination
Speaker 1: of aunt opposite an Arctic, the North Pole. So it's
Speaker 1: opposite of the North Pole the South Pole, pretty neat,
Speaker 1: and which one has penguins? And so the Antarctica has
Speaker 1: penguins and the North Pole doesn't. Isn't that right? I
Speaker 1: don't remember, but that's like that's the case, right, doesn't
Speaker 1: one have one and the other one doesn't? I know,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of emails. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I'm doing this again. I know I might as well
Speaker 1: just took a car battery up to my nipples or something.
Speaker 1: It'll get the same. I got you on that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was good. UM. So let's talk about America because
Speaker 1: I just realized something to check. This may be played
Speaker 1: in UM geography classes in like middle school and stuff.
Speaker 1: So if that's the case, I want to go ahead
Speaker 1: and apologize to all the middle schoolers. Just had to
Speaker 1: hear me say that that's okay, and don't don't try
Speaker 1: that at home. It doesn't matter of what grade you're
Speaker 1: in or how how long out of school you are agreed.
Speaker 1: Uh So America the name America. If you went to
Speaker 1: took Civics class or geography and elementary school and high school,
Speaker 1: you probably got the story that Amerigo Vespucci was it
Speaker 1: was named after him, European explorer. Yeah, that guy has
Speaker 1: been slandered, maligned, maybe worse than Columbus even apparently he
Speaker 1: had a lot of rivals back in Italy, and um
Speaker 1: they worked very hard to sully his name, and it
Speaker 1: was quite effective over the centuries, to the point where
Speaker 1: there was a big, almost a revival in in hatred
Speaker 1: for Americo Vespucci, and a lot of really um uh
Speaker 1: inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary propaganda against him.
Speaker 1: So so what's the idea that he ripped off Columbus. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not It depends on your definition of ripped off.
Speaker 1: So I don't have the impression that he ever said
Speaker 1: I discovered America. He said Columbus discovered America. But the
Speaker 1: distinction between Vespucci and Columbus is that Columbus didn't realize
Speaker 1: that he hadn't hit already, that he hadn't hit undiscovered
Speaker 1: or previously undiscovered by European land. Right, he thought that
Speaker 1: he had just found another route to the West Indies.
Speaker 1: Apparently until he died, Vespucci was the one to say,
Speaker 1: no Europeans ever seen this before? Please, that was great, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it. Um. And so he is the
Speaker 1: one who supposedly this continent was named after because he
Speaker 1: was the one to wreck gnize it as previously uncharted land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's on record. Um. In fifteen o seven, a cartographer,
Speaker 1: a German cartographer named Martin Valt semula our two favorite accents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Italian and German, two of the only two you can
Speaker 1: still do these days and not get taken to desk force. Uh.
Speaker 1: He very famously made a map that was a big
Speaker 1: effort in France. Uh, in the fift hundreds too, really
Speaker 1: bring the modern map into the forefront and like these
Speaker 1: old maps like these were made by a bunch of
Speaker 1: dummies who didn't know anything. So let's really expand our
Speaker 1: geographic knowledge. And well, yeah this has when like mercater
Speaker 1: started working. Yeah, so this this woodcut map that um
Speaker 1: Baltzemula made was the first to depict a separate Western hemisphere,
Speaker 1: the first to show the Pacific Ocean as a separate thing. Oh.
Speaker 1: This guy, he was here, He's like, get that sea
Speaker 1: monster off of there. I'd lea but see monster just
Speaker 1: for fun. But he um, it's an easter egg there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one of these maps. There is one of
Speaker 1: these maps still uh existing. And in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress bought it with donation from Discovery Channel.
Speaker 1: Oh is that right? Apparently nice for ten million bucks.
Speaker 1: It was in a castle for three d and fifty
Speaker 1: years in southern Germany, and they're like, wow, let's buy
Speaker 1: it and display it. I read about a guy um
Speaker 1: who found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence
Speaker 1: folded up behind a painting that he bought at a
Speaker 1: yard sale four dollars amazing, and I think he sold
Speaker 1: it for like a few million, and then Norman Maylor
Speaker 1: bought it for like eight million. But yeah, it's somebody
Speaker 1: just found the Declaration of It and it's I guess
Speaker 1: in much the same way. That's amazing. I got nothing
Speaker 1: in my attic. I even looked, Oh you did look.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you don't know, but I guess
Speaker 1: you do that some old doors doors can be worth Yeah,
Speaker 1: the door from the early nineteen thirties. Yeah, people love
Speaker 1: those things. They go crazy for him. I think it's neat.
Speaker 1: But you know, I wanted like a stash of gold
Speaker 1: bullion or something like Prohibition era money. What's your house
Speaker 1: abelt like nineteen Prohibition? Yeah, I guess so, labe, some
Speaker 1: old booze would be delicious. So um. The reason this
Speaker 1: map is significant by is that it says America like
Speaker 1: North South America are designated America by this map. And
Speaker 1: this this map that is in question was from when
Speaker 1: was it fifteen o seven? And um, somebody said, hey, buddy, um,
Speaker 1: why did you call it America? And he said, I
Speaker 1: did it in honor of America Vespucci. So the first
Speaker 1: guy who really uses the word America is on record
Speaker 1: apparently is saying he named it America after Americo Vespucci.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people said that's a lie, it's
Speaker 1: a historical fallacy, it's inaccurate. One guy went so far
Speaker 1: as to say that Amerigo Vespucci actually changed his name
Speaker 1: after America was named, and that his real name was
Speaker 1: um uh the Giovanni Vespucci, no Alberigo Vespucci, and that
Speaker 1: he changed his name to Amerigo from Alberigo to conveniently
Speaker 1: align 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. Cho There
Speaker 1: is a long um tradition among cartographers that had already
Speaker 1: been established by this time America was discovered to name
Speaker 1: new lands. If you're naming it after an explorer, you
Speaker 1: named it after the explorer's last name. If you want
Speaker 1: to name it after royalty, you named it after the
Speaker 1: 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 name thinks.
Speaker 1: So they would have named America Vespucci Land the United
Speaker 1: States of Vespucci exactly, rather than America. 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 americick America americ kim,
Speaker 1: it's a Mayan word. Actually, Yes, mountains in Nicaragua. And um,
Speaker 1: this is where my money goes, you think? So so Um.
Speaker 1: People think that Columbus and Vespucci both went to these
Speaker 1: mountains after American natives said, hey, there's gold in them
Speaker 1: dar Hills, which of course is really all they wanted anyway. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not true. They wanted to discover new lands, but
Speaker 1: hopefully new lands with cold and people you could subjugate. Um,
Speaker 1: So that they went there, and that it was named
Speaker 1: after those mountains, yeah, not bad. And did you say
Speaker 1: both Columbus and Vespucci supposedly traveled to these mountains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they wanted the gold, right, So that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good reason to call it that. And um, when you
Speaker 1: combine that with the evidence that a cartographer likely would
Speaker 1: have named it Vespucci Land rather than America after America, Um,
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that America is actually named after a
Speaker 1: indigenous Mayan word for some mountains. I think it means
Speaker 1: place of wind in Mayan. Interesting. Uh, another theory and
Speaker 1: this one I don't think it's very I don't think
Speaker 1: it holds water. But there was a British Royal rep
Speaker 1: named Richard Emery A M E. R i k E.
Speaker 1: Supposedly explorer John Cabot became the first well this isn't
Speaker 1: supposed in he definitely became the first to sail under
Speaker 1: the British flag to the New World. And apparently when
Speaker 1: he got back he got a big wad of cash
Speaker 1: from America and he was like, Hey, I'm gonna name
Speaker 1: the country in continent after you. Then but that there's
Speaker 1: really nothing to substantiate that, right, and then Cabot retired
Speaker 1: to make some pretty decent butter Oh yeah, so that him,
Speaker 1: I think, So okay, surely it's him. Still, maybe I
Speaker 1: need several hundred years. Do you want to take a
Speaker 1: break again, Yeah, let's break, and then we'll talk about
Speaker 1: our favorite continent, Australia. So he chucked. You were telling
Speaker 1: everybody our favorite continent is Australia. Yeah, that's what Lex
Speaker 1: luthor Gene Hackman is less Lex Luthor wanted in Superman.
Speaker 1: He wanted Australia to his own or Superman too. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: remember Electric the three? Uh the three uh Terrence uh
Speaker 1: Terrence uh stamp in the gang came down and he
Speaker 1: and Lex Luthor was working in cahoots with them, and
Speaker 1: they were like, well, what do you want in return
Speaker 1: for delivering Superman? He said Australia. I don't remember that man.
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman was great. I saw this the beginning of
Speaker 1: a movie with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau. Rob Williams
Speaker 1: was like a baby at the time, but like they
Speaker 1: foil a robbery and like become heroes the thing and
Speaker 1: then they, yeah, they go to like a survivalist camp
Speaker 1: or something. I think it's called Survivors. I think so
Speaker 1: I saw like the first time, I totally but I
Speaker 1: was like, man, there's no oh one, no one on
Speaker 1: the planet like Walter math Ou anymore. Like he was awesome.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, god, I can't imagine Robin
Speaker 1: Williams and Walter math how working together? And then didn't
Speaker 1: they do like Moscow on the Hudson too? Wasn't that one?
Speaker 1: And then I went on I don't think math that
Speaker 1: was in that one. Oh he wasn't. I thought he was.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was. I could be wrong because I never
Speaker 1: saw it. Those early Robin Williams movies were great. Recording
Speaker 1: to Garp. I never saw that one. That was by
Speaker 1: the guy who did sider House Rules, Right, John Irving,
Speaker 1: He's pretty great. Um. But then it made me think
Speaker 1: about Couch Trip. You remember that movie with Dan Nacroyd
Speaker 1: and Walter Math. I didn't see it was good. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was so good. I haven't seen it in decades,
Speaker 1: but I guarantee it still holds up. I mean it's
Speaker 1: math owen Ackroyd. Yeah, one's like a con man pretending
Speaker 1: to be crazy and the other one actually is crazy.
Speaker 1: Who was the only person who consents that this guy's
Speaker 1: a con man? You know, I've never been there. Sorry,
Speaker 1: he's a con man pretending to not be crazy. Okay,
Speaker 1: well that makes more sense. It's great. I've never been
Speaker 1: the hugest danach roy guy. Uh, he definitely is danach
Speaker 1: roy Dana k Royd, and I don't dislike him, but
Speaker 1: Walter Math I was providing a nice slow burning distraction
Speaker 1: over here. If you don't like danach Royd. You'll still
Speaker 1: like couch Chip, Yeah, employ the odd couple math A Lemon.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever saw that original one.
Speaker 1: All right, that's called movie Sidebar with Josh and Chuck,
Speaker 1: and that started with Geane Heckman. We didn't mean talk
Speaker 1: about him. Oh I love Jane hack He needs to unretire,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. Like, go make another movie your
Speaker 1: swan song, That's what I say. Alright, we own Eugene Hackman. Australia,
Speaker 1: which is what Gene Hackman is, like Luthor wanted. Um,
Speaker 1: it is a bit of a mystery to most. People
Speaker 1: will point to Matthew Flinders in two as the namer
Speaker 1: because he was the first to circumnavigate it and create
Speaker 1: that map. And Australias means southern, so it all makes sense,
Speaker 1: right yeah, back in back in the day, Um, the
Speaker 1: cartographers are already aware of Australia before Matthew Flinders circumnavigated it,
Speaker 1: but they called it the Terra Australis, which is the
Speaker 1: southern land. Matthew Flinders is like, I like the sign
Speaker 1: of Australia more. It's more pleasing than the ear apparently,
Speaker 1: is how it was put Um, the thing is is
Speaker 1: and for a very long time, that's how Australia was named,
Speaker 1: as far as anyone who was concerned. But then Australia's
Speaker 1: National Library discovered a way older map from before eighteen
Speaker 1: or two, from fifty five, Yeah, from a German astronomer
Speaker 1: name Siriaco Yako sum Barth. That's a great name, great name,
Speaker 1: not at all German if you ask me, except for
Speaker 1: the yaka thing. Uh, sum Barth is but that's Siriaco.
Speaker 1: Definitely doesn't look German. But yeah, fifty five, that's like
Speaker 1: way way before. Yeah, and apparently there's map that are
Speaker 1: even slightly older than that around and one of them
Speaker 1: might have been produced by Mercator himself. Uh. That also
Speaker 1: refer to the area around Australia as Australia something, so
Speaker 1: not everyone was referring to it exclusively as the Terra Australis.
Speaker 1: But it's probably it's probable that the Syriac go Yaka
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, Super Interesting, starring Hugh Jackman for the World
Speaker 1: War two part by the way when I mentioned Hugh
Speaker 1: Jackman is P. T. Barnum. Okay, he is in fact
Speaker 1: playing P. T. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of
Speaker 1: the movie. But right right, either didn't know, or I
Speaker 1: subliminally knew, but I didn't overtly know. I thought later
Speaker 1: on after I found that out, that you've just been
Speaker 1: messing with me the whole episode. Well, I I apologize
Speaker 1: for assuming that that's all right. I either didn't know,
Speaker 1: or maybe I had read that and just forgot or something,
Speaker 1: because you said it like three times. Yeah, or maybe
Speaker 1: I should get into cast. If you didn't know, then
Speaker 1: hats off to you because that was prescient. Uh So,
Speaker 1: now let's move on to Oh, did you see some
Speaker 1: of the suggestions we got though? Oh for P. T. Barnum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that my favorite one was John c Riley.
Speaker 1: He'd be an odd John c or he'd be an
Speaker 1: odd P. T. Barnum, but he could totally do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw one. Someone said Tom Hardy, who like he'd
Speaker 1: be great in anything, but he's in everything right now.
Speaker 1: And then someone sent Cole Meany, who was sort of
Speaker 1: like the the names, like, I know the name, who
Speaker 1: is it that he's like the English John c Riley.
Speaker 1: He sort of looks like he's older though, right or
Speaker 1: he 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 had the swave? Have you seen
Speaker 1: we need to talk about Kevin? Oh, you all love
Speaker 1: it the movie He's a sleeper with John c Riley
Speaker 1: and Till the Swinton about um, they have a kid
Speaker 1: who's a bad kid until the Swinton's having to deal
Speaker 1: with it. Interesting, really great movie. It's on Netflix right now.
Speaker 1: I love John c Riley, so he's kind of a
Speaker 1: prop in the background for this. It's mostly Till the
Speaker 1: Swinton and I 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. There's
Speaker 1: a a afrak people who are in the northern part
Speaker 1: of Africa, their their Berber tribe. Not a bad source,
Speaker 1: makes sense, um. And then apparently at PreK in Greek
Speaker 1: or a prika and 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: first 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 him if they didn't come back,
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. Uh e r e
Speaker 1: b arab which means sunset or west that's a Phoenician word, right,
Speaker 1: So it's possible Phoenisi and sailors named Asia and Europe
Speaker 1: and there's other ones to like Europa as a Greek
Speaker 1: um mythological figure right yeah um, and then uh, Asia
Speaker 1: could have been named after a ruler named um Asios,
Speaker 1: a Trojan ruler. Yeah. I don't think that's it. That's
Speaker 1: the fun thing about things where it's like no one knows.
Speaker 1: You can be like that's not right. Yeah, you read
Speaker 1: certain you read theories, and some make sense to you
Speaker 1: and some don't write. I like that. Uh, that's why
Speaker 1: I don't. I think math never appealed to me, and
Speaker 1: why it does appeal to math fans because it's rules
Speaker 1: apply and like there is a right and a wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm much more prone to be like to think about
Speaker 1: something and have theories about it. Well know, they say
Speaker 1: you read a lot of fiction, right, They say that
Speaker 1: people who read fiction are much more open to um
Speaker 1: ambiguous resolutions or non resolutions lacking closure. Um. And because
Speaker 1: you so frequently get that from fiction, it leads to
Speaker 1: the question, though, which is first, are you attracted to
Speaker 1: fiction because the usually has resolutions like there? Have you
Speaker 1: been trained to accept resolutions like that. From appreciating fiction, well,
Speaker 1: back to movies. One of my favorite things, which really
Speaker 1: bothers a lot of people, are movies with ambiguous endings.
Speaker 1: If it if done right, I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the coolest things you can do in a movie is
Speaker 1: to not wrap it up in a little bow and
Speaker 1: kind of leave the end with a decision like what's
Speaker 1: going on here? Suel Well maybe, um, I bet math
Speaker 1: majors hate that though, now that they 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: it'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 America on it and it says Canada,
Speaker 1: and then Mexico and in the middle it says pavement,
Speaker 1: and I get a lot of compliments on it, and
Speaker 1: I think it's from people thinking I'm making a statement
Speaker 1: like the United States is just a bunch of pavement
Speaker 1: and like, you know, Canada Mexico aren't, when in fact
Speaker 1: it's just the band or maybe they're all just pavement bands.
Speaker 1: You can't tell. You can never tell these days. Then
Speaker 1: I tell you I'm Facebook friends with Bob the Stanovich
Speaker 1: from Pavement. You didn't. I tricked him because we had
Speaker 1: some mutual friends. Your mom said that you have to
Speaker 1: be friends with you on Facebook. Yeah. It's pretty great though.
Speaker 1: I like seeing insight into these like people our Revere.
Speaker 1: He's a big horse racing guy. Oh yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: likes the pony. Yeah. I don't like going to the
Speaker 1: track necessarily, but I like the Big Three. Um, although
Speaker 1: I would go to the track whereas don't have them
Speaker 1: 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 to. 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 massive great articles. Since I said mess,
Speaker 1: it's time for listening mail, I'm gonna call this road tripping.
Speaker 1: We get a lot of emails from people that listen
Speaker 1: to us while they're road tripping, yes, which is very nice. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: my husband and I are adventuring on a road trip
Speaker 1: from Texas throughout Florida. I've been addicted to the show
Speaker 1: for a couple of months now, but my husband has
Speaker 1: not listened to a podcast in his life. I started
Speaker 1: the driving in the trip, and he asked if I
Speaker 1: could make it all the way to Florida. First of all, Husband, Tom, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty serious stuff. All right, we're in Texas, hunt,
Speaker 1: can you make it all the way to Florida. I
Speaker 1: gotta kept some z s uh. I said that if
Speaker 1: I could listen to stuff you should know, then I
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop driving. He sighed regrettably, and then let me
Speaker 1: turn an episode on five days into the trip. Every
Speaker 1: time we get into the car, he now says, educate
Speaker 1: me on stuff I should know. Our biggest debates are
Speaker 1: deciding on which podcast to listen to next. We literally
Speaker 1: made it to one of our destinations and sat in
Speaker 1: the car for another fifteen minutes after a three hour drive,
Speaker 1: just to finish an episode. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: what you do. And that is from Kim and Tom Kepler.
Speaker 1: And since we are not recording too far out these days,
Speaker 1: they're most likely still on the 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 with us because
Speaker 1: you love us on a road trip or you, um, whatever,
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and as always,
Speaker 1: joined us at at home on the web Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.