On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus reached the Americas unaware that he had discovered a new continent. It must be said that this explorer did not set out to discover new lands since his mission was to find a westerly passage to India and the eastern countries in order to open new trading routes. Although, he became the man who most people associate with the discovering of the American Continent, he never knew that he had discover one since he believed that he had reached the West of india when he eventually found terra firmae. It was another explorer who realised while exploring the east coast of South America that the West India was in a fact a new continent. His name was Amerigo Vespucci and 1507, barely a year after Columbus' demise, Martin Waldseemuller brought into existence a global representation of the world on which the new continent was called America in recognition to the achievement of the explorer. Why America and not Amerigo. Well, seemingly, since the name of every other continent had a female name the obvious thing to do was to give the new one a female name.

Pedro Figueras