[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 287 Engrossed in House (EH)]


                In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

                                                         July 11, 2007.
Whereas Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci was born in 1454 and traveled across 
        the Atlantic Ocean 4 times between 1497 and 1504;
Whereas during his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere in 1499, Amerigo 
        Vespucci realized that the land Christopher Columbus discovered in 1492 
        was not India but a new continent;
Whereas cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, a member of the research group 
        Gymnasium Vosagense in Saint-Die, France, first used the word 
        ``America'' in his world map, which first appeared in public on April 
        25, 1507, and described the newly discovered Western Hemisphere as 
        separated by the Atlantic Ocean and an ocean known now as the Pacific 
        Ocean, in its first depiction;
Whereas Waldseemuller chose to honor Amerigo Vespucci by naming the new 
        continent with Vespucci's name even while Vespucci was alive;
Whereas Waldseemuller described this decision in his ``Cosmographiae 
        Introductio'', the book that accompanied the map, by writing, ``I see no 
        reason why anyone should justly object to calling this part ... America, 
        after Amerigo [Vespucci], its discoverer, a man of great ability.''; and
Whereas April 25, 2007, will be the 500th anniversary of this first public use 
        of the word ``America'', which now serves as the root of the names of 2 
        continents: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved,  That the House of Representatives--
            (1) celebrates the 500th anniversary of the first use of the name 
        ``America'' to describe areas in the Western Hemisphere;
            (2) honors the explorations of Amerigo Vespucci and other navigators 
        who contributed to the discovery of the Western Hemisphere;
            (3) acknowledges the significance of Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 map 
        of the world and accompanying book, ``Cosmographiae Introductio'', which 
        forever changed the accepted geographical view of the world and first 
        officially used the name ``America''; and
            (4) encourages the inhabitants of all countries of the Western 
        Hemisphere who have the privilege to share this great name ``America'' 
        to join with the House of Representatives and citizens of the United 
        States of America in this historic celebration.
            Attest:

                                                                          Clerk.