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The first global map

OCT 30, 2009
Physics Today

BBC news : Drawn half a millennium ago and then swiftly forgotten, one map made us see the world as we know it today... and helped name America. But, as BBC news reporter Toby Lester discovered, the first map that outlined the continents of the world as we know them today, also named America based on a pun.

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In late May 2003 the Library of Congress bought the only surviving copy of Martin Waldseemüller’s monumental 1507 world map for $10 million (image credit: Library of Congress).

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