How did our country get named “America?”
Most sources agree that “America” is a feminized version of Amerigo, after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454? – 1512). But it’s unlikely Vespucci ever set foot in modern-day North America, nor did… Read More
Do you know where Patagonia is located? (And no, I don’t mean the store in Freeport, Maine.) It’s the region at the southernmost tip of South America, where modern-day Argentina and Chile are located.
The first explorer to name it… Read More
Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) was buried in what is now the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, but not because he had written Canterbury Tales. He was granted a plot for being “Clerk of Works” to the palace of Westminster.