March 22, 2016 • 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 episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by square Space. Start
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we have a tour update if you live in Denver, Colorado,
or Houston, Texas. This makes our third trip to Texas,
(00:21):
which ties it for California from their neck and Neck,
neck and neck and well in that way only. So
this is actually Memorial Day weekend people. On Saturday of May,
we will be in Houston, Texas, and on Sunday May
we are going to Denver. You can find out all
the information at s y s K live dot com
(00:43):
right powered by square Space and tickets go and sail
this Friday. Yeah, so go get them be there or
be square Houston and Denver. Welcome to you Stuff you
should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey you,
(01:05):
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 according to everybody. No, not everybody. Yeah,
we'll get to it, Okay, we don't want to spoil
like basically the fact of the podcast right already. Uh,
(01:29):
this is as I said about geography, and if this
kind of thing quotes 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 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
(01:49):
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 well, well,
we humans are kind of big on names, I guess. Yeah,
(02:10):
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 the whole in group, out group, Yes, you know. Yeah,
and uh boy, I have to say, for a short
ish podcast, which this is going to be, it's gonna
be our longest one, let's take an head break. No,
not yet. I hazard to say that I learned more
(02:32):
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,
well you like for the artistry, right, Yeah. And I
(02:52):
was just ordered a great new map. Um. I wish
I could remember the guy's name, but it was read
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. That would
be great though, although you can just follow your nose,
you don't really need it always knows. Yeah, just like
(03:14):
smell the Horsey sauce. I love that stuff, although the
Arvy sauces by far the superior of the two. Well,
I think you got to mix them. That's the key.
Not always. I'm more of a beef and cheddar cheddar
mix with the Arby's sauce it's delicious, and the horses sauce,
although I'm okay with horse sauce. Sometimes I haven't had
Arbies and forever. Yeah, it's delicious. That disgusting roast beech
(03:38):
sandwich is so good. 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, you need like a huge,
huge wing of your house and just have every map
you have right framed on the wall. I should be like,
(04:01):
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. You know how to swing
a hammer, don't you. Yeah, just build another room, Chuck room,
I wish my friend so Chuck. We were talking about
um continents in their names and all that stuff, right,
(04:21):
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 in even further back than
that million years ago. If you looked at the planet Earth,
(04:44):
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.
What a stud that continent was. And there was one ocean.
Uh and the name of that ocean was Panthalassa. Yeah,
(05:05):
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 around back then. Two million years are going
and be like note to two thousand sixteen. This is
the way things are land wise around here. Um. No.
(05:27):
And the this this theory actually was we've talked about
it before. It had to have been in the earthquakes episode.
This guy was awesome. Alfred Wegener. Yeah, back in I
think nineteen fifteen he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah,
it's pretty amazing. Um. 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
(05:49):
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 guess they just took for granted that the
continents were the way they were. But Alfred Wegner Um,
(06:11):
first of all, he noticed on a map, like, wow,
it looks like you could really tuck Africa, um, east
or 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, if you're if you have
a brain. So that's where he got his idea first,
(06:32):
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 the same to those
(06:53):
in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah, which shouldn't
happen because what coal is its 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 amounts suggests
(07:17):
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. Yeah,
he saw plant fossils and said, wait a minute, I'm
finding this stuff in places that are wildly different from
one another, these fossils. So maybe again that lends to
my theory. Or how about this mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains,
(07:41):
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. What was the name
of that mountain range were part of the Central Pangaea Mountains,
which apparently forms through the collision of the supercontinents of
gond Anna and uh Laurussia. Yeah, because and we're we're
(08:03):
also um. In addition to this how stuff works article,
you found a great article by Tia Ghosts, who writes
for Live Science and write some pretty great stuff. Yeah,
this is really good, and Ghosts um Is basically just
broke it all out, like how Pangia formed what Pangia
broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah and concise.
I like articles. It's not fluff, you know, right, just
(08:25):
like packed with get to it right at the beginning. Okay,
I love it and don't let up, don't stop to
have enough. So uh. In the article they talk about
the uh 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 part of North America
(08:46):
and some other micro continents that formed eventually You're America.
That's not bad. It sounds like a craft work album
who it does totally. Uh You're America crashes into Gondwana,
which I mentioned before I liked to. I'm just gonna
come and say, I like these these pre current continent
continent names, pre white dude names, right, I guess so,
(09:10):
but I think they were named by white dudes, probably
more creative white dudes. Uh and A. 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 nationalism and all this man if you've just
gone back a few hundred million years ago, you'd be neighbors.
(09:31):
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're you're making
a political statement. It's just there's such a sense of
otherness and togetherness based on geographical distribution, and it's it is,
it's it's interesting. It says a lot about the human psyche. Yeah,
(09:53):
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,
(10:14):
uh and then they had 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. Yeah.
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.
(10:34):
It's like, no, they they have gone through 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 didn't do that if you
have that enough patients. Yeah, in brains. Uh. So Interestingly
they talked to a little bit in the article about
a climate and what it might have been like back then.
(10:56):
And maybe the interior of this large supercontinent was completely
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, like you
(11:20):
were just you apparently there was a ring of 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
(11:42):
isn't over. They point out in the article that things
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 staying so long.
I'm I'm going off on my own. I'm gonna seek
(12:04):
my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this is over
the course of hundreds of millions of years, so you
will likely not be around 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
and then we'll talk a little bit about these names. Yes, so, Chuck.
(12:50):
That is the theory of 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
(13:13):
there's a lot of 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, that 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 the high frue tost Corncer people.
(13:36):
They're like really active in the comments section proto in
the gang. Oh wait, that's Middle Earth different uh. And Pangia,
we should mention, is Greek for all lands or all earth.
So that's a great name for the original super continent, right,
And Panthalassa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it.
And Pangia was what's considered a true continent. And we
(13:58):
should say this because they'll come up, But a true
continent is a landmask 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
for the show was from you. But not too long ago,
(14:22):
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 asa. Let's go look, well it depends part
of it. Well, yeah, part of it. Then same with
Turkey is is split and uh, you know, some people
(14:43):
identify with Europe, some people identify with Asia. That's why
the term eur Asia. 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
Kazakh stand or something being like straddling the sides, but
I didn't realize like Russia itself was split. Some that's
(15:04):
pretty interesting, maybe some Russians. All right, in tell us
how you identify? Are you Eurasian, Asian, European? Which one? Yeah?
Because obviously a lot of these lines are drawn culturally.
Um right, because their mountain ranges that that separated. That's
not I mean, it's a geographical border, but not when
(15:27):
you're speaking in continents, it's not incontinents. Should we tell
them Jerry's bad joke? Before we started, Jerry said, I
guess we're technically all incontinent, And I said, no, technically
we're all on continent. And then she said, or within continent,
and none of the three things that we said. We're funny.
(15:49):
That's that's how things happen before 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 this discovery, you typically
get some sort of naming rights. Yeah, and a lot
(16:12):
of these are very uh just conjecture goes into maybe
who named these and who didn't? Um. One big exception
is Antarctica because it's new ish. It's like the Poluto. Yeah,
as far as when people discovered it. Uh. In fact,
you can go to the New York Times and read
in uh nineteen four about the naming of Antarctica if
(16:34):
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.
That was an interesting article. This one is it's bad?
Did you read it? No? Just the seno? Okay, Well,
a man named Sir John Murray was a great exploring oceanographer. Uh.
(16:58):
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.
If you look at the map of this thing and
the route, it was just it's staggering. Do you have
a map of it? I don't own one, but I
(17:19):
looked it up today. It's pretty neat. And I never
knew HMS stood for Did you know that Her Majesty's Ship? Yeah,
I never knew that. Oh, 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 USS just United
States ship? I don't know. I never thought about that either.
(17:41):
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. Uh, they didn't actually see 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,
(18:03):
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 actually was able to name it as a combination
of aunt opposite an Arctic, the North Pole. So it's
(18:24):
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 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 know I might as well
(18:44):
just took 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 in like middle school and stuff.
So if that's the case, I want to go ahead
(19:05):
and apologize to all the middle schoolers. Just had to
hear me say that that's okay, and don't don't try
that at home. It doesn't matter of what grade you're
in or how how long out of school you are agreed.
Uh So America the name America. If you went to
took Civics class or geography and elementary school and high school,
(19:27):
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, and it
(19:48):
was quite effective over the centuries, to the point where
there was a big, almost a revival in in hatred
for Americo Vespucci, and a lot of really um uh
inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary propaganda against him.
(20:09):
So so what's the idea that he 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 Vespucci and Columbus is that Columbus didn't realize
(20:30):
that he hadn't hit already, 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,
(20:51):
it wasn't like it. Um. And so he is the
one who supposedly this continent was named after because he
was the one to wreck gnize it as previously uncharted land. Yeah,
and it's on record. Um. In fifteen o seven, a cartographer,
a German cartographer named Martin Valt semula our two favorite accents. Yeah,
(21:15):
Italian and German, two of the only two you can
still do these days and not get taken to desk force. Uh.
He very famously made a map that was a big
effort in France. Uh, in the fift hundreds too, really
bring the modern map into the forefront and like these
old maps like these were made by a bunch of
(21:36):
dummies who didn't know anything. So let's really expand our
geographic knowledge. And well, yeah this has when like mercater
started working. Yeah, so this this woodcut map that um
Baltzemula 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
(21:57):
monster off of there. I'd lea but see 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 donation from Discovery Channel.
Oh is that right? Apparently nice for ten million bucks.
(22:20):
It was in a castle for three d and fifty
years in southern Germany, and they're like, wow, let's buy
it and display it. I read about a guy um
who found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence
folded up behind a painting that he bought at a
yard sale four dollars amazing, and I think he sold
it for like a few million, and then Norman Maylor
(22:40):
bought 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. I got nothing
in my attic. I even looked, Oh you did look.
I was gonna say, you don't know, but I guess
you do that some old doors doors can be worth Yeah,
the door from the early nineteen thirties. Yeah, people love
(23:02):
those things. They 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. What's your house
abelt like nineteen Prohibition? Yeah, I guess so, labe, some
old booze would be delicious. So um. The reason this
(23:24):
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,
(23:46):
why did you call it America? And he said, I
did it in honor of America 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 changed his name
(24:09):
after America was named, and that his real name was
um uh the Giovanni Vespucci, no Alberigo Vespucci, and that
he changed his name to Amerigo from Alberigo to conveniently
align with the naming of America. Right um. But apparently,
and this is this again, this is contemporary stuff. People said,
(24:33):
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
doesn't mean that America was named after Vespucci. Cho There
(24:54):
is a long um tradition among cartographers that had already
been established by this time America was discovered to name
new lands. If you're 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,
(25:16):
Virginia um, and then Columbus or Hudson, like the explorer's
last name. A royalty's first name is how you name thinks.
So they would have named America Vespucci Land the United
States of Vespucci exactly, rather than America. 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
(25:39):
that it was named after the americick America americ kim,
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 all they wanted anyway. Well,
(26:02):
that's not true. They wanted to discover new lands, but
hopefully new lands with cold and people you could subjugate. Um,
So that they went there, and that 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, So that's a pretty
(26:23):
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. I think it means
(26:44):
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 Emery A M E. R i k E.
Supposedly explorer John Cabot became the first well this isn't
supposed in he definitely became the first to sail under
(27:08):
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 Oh yeah, so that him,
I think, So okay, surely it's him. Still, maybe I
(27:32):
need several hundred years. Do you want to take a
break again, Yeah, let's break, and then we'll talk about
our favorite continent, Australia. So he chucked. You were telling
(28:04):
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,
remember Electric the three? Uh the three uh Terrence uh
Terrence uh stamp in the gang came down and he
(28:27):
and Lex 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.
Gene Hackman was great. I saw this the beginning of
a movie with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau. Rob Williams
was like a baby at the time, but like they
foil a robbery and like become heroes the thing and
(28:48):
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 time, I totally but I
was like, man, there's no oh 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
(29:08):
Williams and Walter math how working together? And then didn't
they do like Moscow on the Hudson too? Wasn't that one?
And then I went on I don't think math that
was in that one. Oh he wasn't. I thought he was.
Maybe it was. 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 sider House Rules, Right, John Irving,
(29:30):
He's pretty great. Um. But then it made me think
about Couch Trip. You remember that movie with Dan Nacroyd
and Walter Math. I didn't see it was good. Yes,
it was so good. 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
(29:51):
to be crazy and the other one actually is crazy.
Who was the only person who consents that this guy's
a con man? You know, I've never been there. Sorry,
he's a con man pretending to not be crazy. Okay,
well that makes more sense. It's great. I've never been
the hugest danach roy guy. Uh, he definitely is danach
(30:11):
roy Dana k Royd, and I don't dislike him, but
Walter Math I was providing a nice slow burning distraction
over here. If you don't like danach Royd. You'll still
like couch Chip, Yeah, employ the odd couple math A Lemon.
I don't know if I ever saw that original one.
All right, that's called movie Sidebar with Josh and Chuck,
(30:32):
and that started with Geane Heckman. We didn't mean talk
about him. Oh I love Jane hack He needs to unretire,
is what I'm saying. Like, go make another movie your
swan song, That's what I say. Alright, we own Eugene Hackman. Australia,
which is what Gene Hackman is, like Luthor wanted. Um,
it is a bit of a mystery to most. People
(30:54):
will point to Matthew Flinders in two as the namer
because he was the first to circumnavigate it and create
that map. And Australias 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,
(31:14):
but they called it the Terra Australis, which is the
southern land. Matthew Flinders is like, I like the sign
of Australia more. It's more pleasing than the ear apparently,
is how it was put Um, the thing is is
and for a very long time, that's how Australia was named,
as far as anyone who was concerned. But then Australia's
National Library discovered a way older map from before eighteen
(31:37):
or two, from fifty five, Yeah, from a German astronomer
name Siriaco Yako sum Barth. That's a great name, great name,
not at all German if you ask me, except for
the yaka thing. Uh, sum Barth is but that's Siriaco.
Definitely doesn't look German. But yeah, fifty five, that's like
(31:57):
way way before. Yeah, and apparently there's map that are
even slightly older than that around and one of them
might 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 Australis.
(32:18):
But it's probably it's probable that the Syriac go Yaka
zoom Barth is the one who first labeled it Australia.
All right, we should do a podcast on the history
of Australia, Super Interesting, starring Hugh Jackman for the World
War two part by the way when I mentioned Hugh
Jackman is P. T. Barnum. Okay, he is in fact
(32:39):
playing P. T. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of
the movie. But right right, either didn't know, or I
subliminally knew, 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 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,
(33:01):
because you said it like three times. Yeah, or maybe
I should get into cast. If you didn't know, then
hats off to you because that was prescient. Uh 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
(33:24):
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, but he's in everything right now.
And then someone sent Cole Meany, who 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 he's older though, right or
(33:45):
he may be Irish. Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah, yeah,
I know who he is. They kind of look alike
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 had the swave? Have you seen
we need to talk about Kevin? Oh, you all love
it the movie He's a sleeper with John c Riley
(34:08):
and Till the Swinton about um, they have a kid
who's 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 appreciate hearing that he knows Okay, there's
(34:29):
no way he played that role and doesn't. Now. I
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
(34:50):
call them something. Yeah, probably um, and they're like, Africa
has a few different contenders that are pretty good. There's
a a afrak people who are in the northern part
of Africa, their their Berber tribe. Not a bad source,
makes sense, um. And then apparently at PreK in Greek
(35:13):
or a prika and Latin means sunny, right, yeah, makes
sense to uh. And then there's uh so who who knows?
The point is there's no documentation for when Africa was
first named, and it was most likely Africa. Europe and
Asia were named by seafaring folks who were like, we're
(35:35):
going this place, and they needed a name for this
place so they their families would know where they were
to go look for him if they didn't come back,
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
(35:57):
c u a q for sunrise or east in Europe,
which is of course west uh closer to the sunset
if you're standing in the east. Uh e r e
b arab which means sunset or west that's a Phoenician word, right,
So it's possible Phoenisi and sailors named Asia and Europe
and there's other ones to like Europa as a Greek
(36:19):
um mythological figure right yeah um, and then uh, Asia
could have been named after a ruler named um Asios,
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
(36:39):
certain you read theories, and some make sense to you
and some don't write. I like that. Uh, that's why
I don't. I think math never appealed to me, and
why it does appeal to math fans 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 know, they say
(37:00):
you read a lot of fiction, right, They say that
people who read fiction are much more open to um
ambiguous resolutions or non resolutions 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 the usually has resolutions like there? Have you
(37:20):
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, are movies with ambiguous endings.
If it if 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? Suel Well maybe, um, I bet math
(37:45):
majors hate that though, now that they think about, you know. Uh.
And then finally, some people, still, depending on where you
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
(38:05):
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,
it'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 America on it and it says Canada,
(38:30):
and then Mexico and in the middle it says pavement,
and I get a lot of compliments on it, 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.
(38:51):
You can't tell. You can never tell these days. Then
I tell you I'm Facebook friends with Bob the Stanovich
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. Yeah. It's pretty great though.
I like seeing insight into these like people our Revere.
He's a big horse racing guy. Oh yeah, yeah, he
(39:13):
likes the pony. Yeah. I don't like going to the
track necessarily, but I like the Big Three. Um, although
I would go to the track whereas 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 to. 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
(39:36):
type in geography in the search bar, and it will
bring up a massive great articles. Since I said mess,
it's time for listening 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
(39:57):
from Texas throughout Florida. I've been addicted to the show
for a couple of months now, but my husband has
not listened to a podcast in 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
(40:19):
gotta kept some z s uh. I said that if
I could listen to stuff you should know, then I
wouldn't stop driving. He sighed 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. Our biggest debates are
deciding on which podcast to listen to next. We literally
(40:40):
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. 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 the 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,
(41:03):
shall we. That's awesome. I hope they've just heard this. Yeah.
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(41:24):
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right powered by square Space and tickets go and sail
this Friday. Yeah, so go get them be there or
be square Houston and Denver. Welcome to you Stuff you
should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey you,
(01:05):
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 according to everybody. No, not everybody. Yeah,
we'll get to it, Okay, we don't want to spoil
like basically the fact of the podcast right already. Uh,
(01:29):
this is as I said about geography, and if this
kind of thing quotes 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 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
(01:49):
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 well, well,
we humans are kind of big on names, I guess. Yeah,
(02:10):
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 the whole in group, out group, Yes, you know. Yeah,
and uh boy, I have to say, for a short
ish podcast, which this is going to be, it's gonna
be our longest one, let's take an head break. No,
not yet. I hazard to say that I learned more
(02:32):
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,
well you like for the artistry, right, Yeah. And I
(02:52):
was just ordered a great new map. Um. I wish
I could remember the guy's name, but it was read
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. That would
be great though, although you can just follow your nose,
you don't really need it always knows. Yeah, just like
(03:14):
smell the Horsey sauce. I love that stuff, although the
Arvy sauces by far the superior of the two. Well,
I think you got to mix them. That's the key.
Not always. I'm more of a beef and cheddar cheddar
mix with the Arby's sauce it's delicious, and the horses sauce,
although I'm okay with horse sauce. Sometimes I haven't had
Arbies and forever. Yeah, it's delicious. That disgusting roast beech
(03:38):
sandwich is so good. 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, you need like a huge,
huge wing of your house and just have every map
you have right framed on the wall. I should be like,
(04:01):
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. You know how to swing
a hammer, don't you. Yeah, just build another room, Chuck room,
I wish my friend so Chuck. We were talking about
um continents in their names and all that stuff, right,
(04:21):
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 in even further back than
that million years ago. If you looked at the planet Earth,
(04:44):
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.
What a stud that continent was. And there was one ocean.
Uh and the name of that ocean was Panthalassa. Yeah,
(05:05):
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 around back then. Two million years are going
and be like note to two thousand sixteen. This is
the way things are land wise around here. Um. No.
(05:27):
And the this this theory actually was we've talked about
it before. It had to have been in the earthquakes episode.
This guy was awesome. Alfred Wegener. Yeah, back in I
think nineteen fifteen he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah,
it's pretty amazing. Um. 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
(05:49):
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 guess they just took for granted that the
continents were the way they were. But Alfred Wegner Um,
(06:11):
first of all, he noticed on a map, like, wow,
it looks like you could really tuck Africa, um, east
or 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, if you're if you have
a brain. So that's where he got his idea first,
(06:32):
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 the same to those
(06:53):
in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah, which shouldn't
happen because what coal is its 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 amounts suggests
(07:17):
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. Yeah,
he saw plant fossils and said, wait a minute, I'm
finding this stuff in places that are wildly different from
one another, these fossils. So maybe again that lends to
my theory. Or how about this mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains,
(07:41):
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. What was the name
of that mountain range were part of the Central Pangaea Mountains,
which apparently forms through the collision of the supercontinents of
gond Anna and uh Laurussia. Yeah, because and we're we're
(08:03):
also um. In addition to this how stuff works article,
you found a great article by Tia Ghosts, who writes
for Live Science and write some pretty great stuff. Yeah,
this is really good, and Ghosts um Is basically just
broke it all out, like how Pangia formed what Pangia
broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah and concise.
I like articles. It's not fluff, you know, right, just
(08:25):
like packed with get to it right at the beginning. Okay,
I love it and don't let up, don't stop to
have enough. So uh. In the article they talk about
the uh 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 part of North America
(08:46):
and some other micro continents that formed eventually You're America.
That's not bad. It sounds like a craft work album
who it does totally. Uh You're America crashes into Gondwana,
which I mentioned before I liked to. I'm just gonna
come and say, I like these these pre current continent
continent names, pre white dude names, right, I guess so,
(09:10):
but I think they were named by white dudes, probably
more creative white dudes. Uh and A. 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 nationalism and all this man if you've just
gone back a few hundred million years ago, you'd be neighbors.
(09:31):
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're you're making
a political statement. It's just there's such a sense of
otherness and togetherness based on geographical distribution, and it's it is,
it's it's interesting. It says a lot about the human psyche. Yeah,
(09:53):
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,
(10:14):
uh and then they had 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. Yeah.
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.
(10:34):
It's like, no, they they have gone through 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 didn't do that if you
have that enough patients. Yeah, in brains. Uh. So Interestingly
they talked to a little bit in the article about
a climate and what it might have been like back then.
(10:56):
And maybe the interior of this large supercontinent was completely
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, like you
(11:20):
were just you apparently there was a ring of 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
(11:42):
isn't over. They point out in the article that things
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 staying so long.
I'm I'm going off on my own. I'm gonna seek
(12:04):
my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this is over
the course of hundreds of millions of years, so you
will likely not be around 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
and then we'll talk a little bit about these names. Yes, so, Chuck.
(12:50):
That is the theory of 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
(13:13):
there's a lot of 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, that 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 the high frue tost Corncer people.
(13:36):
They're like really active in the comments section proto in
the gang. Oh wait, that's Middle Earth different uh. And Pangia,
we should mention, is Greek for all lands or all earth.
So that's a great name for the original super continent, right,
And Panthalassa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it.
And Pangia was what's considered a true continent. And we
(13:58):
should say this because they'll come up, But a true
continent is a landmask 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
for the show was from you. But not too long ago,
(14:22):
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 asa. Let's go look, well it depends part
of it. Well, yeah, part of it. Then same with
Turkey is is split and uh, you know, some people
(14:43):
identify with Europe, some people identify with Asia. That's why
the term eur Asia. 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
Kazakh stand or something being like straddling the sides, but
I didn't realize like Russia itself was split. Some that's
(15:04):
pretty interesting, maybe some Russians. All right, in tell us
how you identify? Are you Eurasian, Asian, European? Which one? Yeah?
Because obviously a lot of these lines are drawn culturally.
Um right, because their mountain ranges that that separated. That's
not I mean, it's a geographical border, but not when
(15:27):
you're speaking in continents, it's not incontinents. Should we tell
them Jerry's bad joke? Before we started, Jerry said, I
guess we're technically all incontinent, And I said, no, technically
we're all on continent. And then she said, or within continent,
and none of the three things that we said. We're funny.
(15:49):
That's that's how things happen before 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 this discovery, you typically
get some sort of naming rights. Yeah, and a lot
(16:12):
of these are very uh just conjecture goes into maybe
who named these and who didn't? Um. One big exception
is Antarctica because it's new ish. It's like the Poluto. Yeah,
as far as when people discovered it. Uh. In fact,
you can go to the New York Times and read
in uh nineteen four about the naming of Antarctica if
(16:34):
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.
That was an interesting article. This one is it's bad?
Did you read it? No? Just the seno? Okay, Well,
a man named Sir John Murray was a great exploring oceanographer. Uh.
(16:58):
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.
If you look at the map of this thing and
the route, it was just it's staggering. Do you have
a map of it? I don't own one, but I
(17:19):
looked it up today. It's pretty neat. And I never
knew HMS stood for Did you know that Her Majesty's Ship? Yeah,
I never knew that. Oh, 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 USS just United
States ship? I don't know. I never thought about that either.
(17:41):
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. Uh, they didn't actually see 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,
(18:03):
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 actually was able to name it as a combination
of aunt opposite an Arctic, the North Pole. So it's
(18:24):
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 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 know I might as well
(18:44):
just took 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 in like middle school and stuff.
So if that's the case, I want to go ahead
(19:05):
and apologize to all the middle schoolers. Just had to
hear me say that that's okay, and don't don't try
that at home. It doesn't matter of what grade you're
in or how how long out of school you are agreed.
Uh So America the name America. If you went to
took Civics class or geography and elementary school and high school,
(19:27):
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, and it
(19:48):
was quite effective over the centuries, to the point where
there was a big, almost a revival in in hatred
for Americo Vespucci, and a lot of really um uh
inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary propaganda against him.
(20:09):
So so what's the idea that he 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 Vespucci and Columbus is that Columbus didn't realize
(20:30):
that he hadn't hit already, 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,
(20:51):
it wasn't like it. Um. And so he is the
one who supposedly this continent was named after because he
was the one to wreck gnize it as previously uncharted land. Yeah,
and it's on record. Um. In fifteen o seven, a cartographer,
a German cartographer named Martin Valt semula our two favorite accents. Yeah,
(21:15):
Italian and German, two of the only two you can
still do these days and not get taken to desk force. Uh.
He very famously made a map that was a big
effort in France. Uh, in the fift hundreds too, really
bring the modern map into the forefront and like these
old maps like these were made by a bunch of
(21:36):
dummies who didn't know anything. So let's really expand our
geographic knowledge. And well, yeah this has when like mercater
started working. Yeah, so this this woodcut map that um
Baltzemula 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
(21:57):
monster off of there. I'd lea but see 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 donation from Discovery Channel.
Oh is that right? Apparently nice for ten million bucks.
(22:20):
It was in a castle for three d and fifty
years in southern Germany, and they're like, wow, let's buy
it and display it. I read about a guy um
who found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence
folded up behind a painting that he bought at a
yard sale four dollars amazing, and I think he sold
it for like a few million, and then Norman Maylor
(22:40):
bought 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. I got nothing
in my attic. I even looked, Oh you did look.
I was gonna say, you don't know, but I guess
you do that some old doors doors can be worth Yeah,
the door from the early nineteen thirties. Yeah, people love
(23:02):
those things. They 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. What's your house
abelt like nineteen Prohibition? Yeah, I guess so, labe, some
old booze would be delicious. So um. The reason this
(23:24):
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,
(23:46):
why did you call it America? And he said, I
did it in honor of America 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 changed his name
(24:09):
after America was named, and that his real name was
um uh the Giovanni Vespucci, no Alberigo Vespucci, and that
he changed his name to Amerigo from Alberigo to conveniently
align with the naming of America. Right um. But apparently,
and this is this again, this is contemporary stuff. People said,
(24:33):
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
doesn't mean that America was named after Vespucci. Cho There
(24:54):
is a long um tradition among cartographers that had already
been established by this time America was discovered to name
new lands. If you're 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,
(25:16):
Virginia um, and then Columbus or Hudson, like the explorer's
last name. A royalty's first name is how you name thinks.
So they would have named America Vespucci Land the United
States of Vespucci exactly, rather than America. 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
(25:39):
that it was named after the americick America americ kim,
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 all they wanted anyway. Well,
(26:02):
that's not true. They wanted to discover new lands, but
hopefully new lands with cold and people you could subjugate. Um,
So that they went there, and that 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, So that's a pretty
(26:23):
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. I think it means
(26:44):
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 Emery A M E. R i k E.
Supposedly explorer John Cabot became the first well this isn't
supposed in he definitely became the first to sail under
(27:08):
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 Oh yeah, so that him,
I think, So okay, surely it's him. Still, maybe I
(27:32):
need several hundred years. Do you want to take a
break again, Yeah, let's break, and then we'll talk about
our favorite continent, Australia. So he chucked. You were telling
(28:04):
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,
remember Electric the three? Uh the three uh Terrence uh
Terrence uh stamp in the gang came down and he
(28:27):
and Lex 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.
Gene Hackman was great. I saw this the beginning of
a movie with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau. Rob Williams
was like a baby at the time, but like they
foil a robbery and like become heroes the thing and
(28:48):
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 time, I totally but I
was like, man, there's no oh 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
(29:08):
Williams and Walter math how working together? And then didn't
they do like Moscow on the Hudson too? Wasn't that one?
And then I went on I don't think math that
was in that one. Oh he wasn't. I thought he was.
Maybe it was. 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 sider House Rules, Right, John Irving,
(29:30):
He's pretty great. Um. But then it made me think
about Couch Trip. You remember that movie with Dan Nacroyd
and Walter Math. I didn't see it was good. Yes,
it was so good. 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
(29:51):
to be crazy and the other one actually is crazy.
Who was the only person who consents that this guy's
a con man? You know, I've never been there. Sorry,
he's a con man pretending to not be crazy. Okay,
well that makes more sense. It's great. I've never been
the hugest danach roy guy. Uh, he definitely is danach
(30:11):
roy Dana k Royd, and I don't dislike him, but
Walter Math I was providing a nice slow burning distraction
over here. If you don't like danach Royd. You'll still
like couch Chip, Yeah, employ the odd couple math A Lemon.
I don't know if I ever saw that original one.
All right, that's called movie Sidebar with Josh and Chuck,
(30:32):
and that started with Geane Heckman. We didn't mean talk
about him. Oh I love Jane hack He needs to unretire,
is what I'm saying. Like, go make another movie your
swan song, That's what I say. Alright, we own Eugene Hackman. Australia,
which is what Gene Hackman is, like Luthor wanted. Um,
it is a bit of a mystery to most. People
(30:54):
will point to Matthew Flinders in two as the namer
because he was the first to circumnavigate it and create
that map. And Australias 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,
(31:14):
but they called it the Terra Australis, which is the
southern land. Matthew Flinders is like, I like the sign
of Australia more. It's more pleasing than the ear apparently,
is how it was put Um, the thing is is
and for a very long time, that's how Australia was named,
as far as anyone who was concerned. But then Australia's
National Library discovered a way older map from before eighteen
(31:37):
or two, from fifty five, Yeah, from a German astronomer
name Siriaco Yako sum Barth. That's a great name, great name,
not at all German if you ask me, except for
the yaka thing. Uh, sum Barth is but that's Siriaco.
Definitely doesn't look German. But yeah, fifty five, that's like
(31:57):
way way before. Yeah, and apparently there's map that are
even slightly older than that around and one of them
might 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 Australis.
(32:18):
But it's probably it's probable that the Syriac go Yaka
zoom Barth is the one who first labeled it Australia.
All right, we should do a podcast on the history
of Australia, Super Interesting, starring Hugh Jackman for the World
War two part by the way when I mentioned Hugh
Jackman is P. T. Barnum. Okay, he is in fact
(32:39):
playing P. T. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of
the movie. But right right, either didn't know, or I
subliminally knew, 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 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,
(33:01):
because you said it like three times. Yeah, or maybe
I should get into cast. If you didn't know, then
hats off to you because that was prescient. Uh 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
(33:24):
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, but he's in everything right now.
And then someone sent Cole Meany, who 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 he's older though, right or
(33:45):
he may be Irish. Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah, yeah,
I know who he is. They kind of look alike
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 had the swave? Have you seen
we need to talk about Kevin? Oh, you all love
it the movie He's a sleeper with John c Riley
(34:08):
and Till the Swinton about um, they have a kid
who's 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 appreciate hearing that he knows Okay, there's
(34:29):
no way he played that role and doesn't. Now. I
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
(34:50):
call them something. Yeah, probably um, and they're like, Africa
has a few different contenders that are pretty good. There's
a a afrak people who are in the northern part
of Africa, their their Berber tribe. Not a bad source,
makes sense, um. And then apparently at PreK in Greek
(35:13):
or a prika and Latin means sunny, right, yeah, makes
sense to uh. And then there's uh so who who knows?
The point is there's no documentation for when Africa was
first named, and it was most likely Africa. Europe and
Asia were named by seafaring folks who were like, we're
(35:35):
going this place, and they needed a name for this
place so they their families would know where they were
to go look for him if they didn't come back,
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
(35:57):
c u a q for sunrise or east in Europe,
which is of course west uh closer to the sunset
if you're standing in the east. Uh e r e
b arab which means sunset or west that's a Phoenician word, right,
So it's possible Phoenisi and sailors named Asia and Europe
and there's other ones to like Europa as a Greek
(36:19):
um mythological figure right yeah um, and then uh, Asia
could have been named after a ruler named um Asios,
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
(36:39):
certain you read theories, and some make sense to you
and some don't write. I like that. Uh, that's why
I don't. I think math never appealed to me, and
why it does appeal to math fans 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 know, they say
(37:00):
you read a lot of fiction, right, They say that
people who read fiction are much more open to um
ambiguous resolutions or non resolutions 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 the usually has resolutions like there? Have you
(37:20):
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, are movies with ambiguous endings.
If it if 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? Suel Well maybe, um, I bet math
(37:45):
majors hate that though, now that they think about, you know. Uh.
And then finally, some people, still, depending on where you
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
(38:05):
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,
it'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 America on it and it says Canada,
(38:30):
and then Mexico and in the middle it says pavement,
and I get a lot of compliments on it, 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.
(38:51):
You can't tell. You can never tell these days. Then
I tell you I'm Facebook friends with Bob the Stanovich
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. Yeah. It's pretty great though.
I like seeing insight into these like people our Revere.
He's a big horse racing guy. Oh yeah, yeah, he
(39:13):
likes the pony. Yeah. I don't like going to the
track necessarily, but I like the Big Three. Um, although
I would go to the track whereas 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 to. 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
(39:36):
type in geography in the search bar, and it will
bring up a massive great articles. Since I said mess,
it's time for listening 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
(39:57):
from Texas throughout Florida. I've been addicted to the show
for a couple of months now, but my husband has
not listened to a podcast in 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
(40:19):
gotta kept some z s uh. I said that if
I could listen to stuff you should know, then I
wouldn't stop driving. He sighed 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. Our biggest debates are
deciding on which podcast to listen to next. We literally
(40:40):
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. 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 the 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,
(41:03):
shall we. That's awesome. I hope they've just heard this. Yeah.
If you want to get in touch with us 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,
(41:24):
joined us at at home on the web Stuff you
Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.
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