Interesting Facts About South America

I wonder. I’m a curious person. Haven’t you ever wondered how some things came to be? Why is Brazil have nearly half the land in South America anyway? Whose butt where they kissing. It all makes perfect sense when you look back into history. First lets take a look at how both North America and South America got its name. The name comes from the explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.

When Columbus was exploring new lands he believed that he was in Asia, not in South America. Amerigo is the person that thought Columbus was actually in a new land, not Asia. Since both Europe and Asia are named after women the name America is the feminine version of Mr. Vespucci’s name. Now can you guess where the United States of America got its name?

Now on to why the Spanish where bullied out of nearly half of the land in South America. When the Europeans were exploring South America they didn’t know how far east the lands would go. There was a dispute between Portugal and Spain about who would own the new lands.

The Pope decided to split the new world into two equal parts, Spain would take control of everything to the West of the line of longitude and Portugal would have everything to the East, which included all new discoveries in Africa and Asia.

Called the Treaty of Tordesillas, it was ratified by Spain in 1494.That is why ladies and gentlemen, Brasil controls almost half of the land mass in South America. The French didn’t pay any attention to this treaty which is why you see French influence throughout Canada and parts of the United States, like New Orleans.

Throughout all of South America you are going to see things that reflect the impacts that both Simon Bolivar and Columbus gave to the region. Simon Bolivar is a military general born in Caracas, Venezuela that helped much of Latin America get its independence from the Spanish Empire. Columbus, well if you didn’t know that Christopher Columbus is one of the most important explorers of the new world then you shouldn’t really be reading this post now should you.

Know South America with SA Peru.