Speaking of stupid people...........

History Lesson: Let's see if you can follow along...

America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer, cartographer and navigator. Vespucci made a number of trips across the Atlantic and is credited with solidifying the reputation of the Americas as a new continent.

Christopher Columbus, despite landing in the Bahamas in 1492, believed for more than a decade that he had found a western route to India. Even after numerous expeditions to parts of the Caribbean and America, he remained certain that he had made his way to Asia.

Vespucci’s 1501 expedition is where he solidified his reputation as a legendary explorer, by traveling down the southern coast of south America, past present-day Rio de Janeiro, all the way to within 400 miles of the continents southern tip.

At this point, he was confident that his expedition had not actually reached India, but a completely new continent, one that was not part of the “Old World” (Europe, Asia and Africa).

The European discoverer of the Gulf was Sebastián de Ocampo, who sailed around the western end of Cuba in 1508. The Gulf of Mexico was first named so on a Mercator map in 1569. (The earliest maps referred to the Gulf as Seno Mejicano or Golfo de la Nueva España.) That would be 38 years before the Jamestown colony was formed; 207 years before the founding of the United States of America; and 238 years before the USA owned any land on the Gulf of Mexico with the Louisiana Purchase.

Geographically speaking, the “gulf” of Mexico is a Sea, larger than the Black Sea or Adriatic. Since it has an inlet and an outlet, into the same body of water, it is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. Water flows in from the Caribbean Sea and flows out through the straits of Florida.