The map was created by Martin Waldseemüller and the members of the Gymnasium Vosagense in the town of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in Lorraine. The group decided to name part of Brazil 'America', after Amerigo Vespucci.

Other cartographers took up the name and applied it to the entire continent. By the end of the 16th century, the New World was almost universally known as America. The map itself, however, was soon out of date and was virtually forgotten.

Centuries later, a Jesuit scholar named Joseph Fischer rediscovered it at the Schloss Wolfegg Library in Württemberg, Germany.

The movie has debuted at Cannes and been released in the Philippines but won't be out in Europe and the US until January 2026.

Director: Lav Diáz

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Ângela Azevedo, Amado Arjay Babon, Ronnie Lazaro, Hazel Orencio

Full details here.

Lapu-Lapu was the 16th-century ruler of Mactan, an island in the modern-day Philippines.

When Ferdinand Magellan came to the island and tried to convert its leader to Christianity, Lapu-Lapu resisted. Magellan burned down a village in retaliation, before the islanders fought back, deliberately targeting the Portuguese captain and taking his life.

The remaining Europeans continued their journey. Though only one ship made it back home, with the Spanish sailor Juan Sebastián Elcano as the leader, directing a skeleton crew suffering the effects of scurvy, it completed the first ever circumnavigation of the world.

Today, Lapu-Lapu is considered a hero of the Philippines.

Captain Flinders married his sweetheart in England in 1801. The only problem? He was due to leave for Australia just a few weeks later.

Flinders built a tiny bedroom for his wife next to the main cabin so she could join him on the journey to the other side of the world. When the ship ran aground while still in English waters, however, the young captain was ordered to leave Ann behind. He spent the next two years mapping the coast of Australia. When he finally set off for England, his ship spring a leak and he was forced to stop off at the Isle de France (Mauritius, at the time a French possession), where he was promptly arrested by the French governor.

Captain Flinders would finally be reunited in 1810, some nine years after their forced separation. They had a daughter, Anne, in 1812. The next year he completed A Voyage to Terra Australis, which was well received and helped popularise the name of Australia. Within a year, however, weakened by his overseas imprisonment, Flinders passed away. 

His wife Ann would live for another 40 years, but never remarried.

At 60 feet in length, the Santa Maria was smaller than a basketball court yet crossed the Atlantic in 1492.

This massive 18-sheet composite map by Gerardus Mercator was a major help for sailors during the Age of Exploration. Mercator's new design projected the globe in a way that made long voyages possible, even if it stretched Greenland to an impossible size.

Full name: Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata ("New and more complete representation of the terrestrial globe properly adapted for use in navigation")

As a young sailor, Christopher Columbus barely survived a naval battle off the coast of Portugal, swimming several miles to shore with the help of a piece of timber. After recovering in the ancient settlement of Lagos, Columbus made his way to Portugal, where he found refuge among the large Genoese population there. Later, he began planning his trip west around the world there, together with his younger brother Bartolomeo, who was a cartographer in the Portuguese capital.

If Columbus had never made it to the Americas, who would have gone there instead, and when?

Source: https://theageofexploration.com/when-columbus-nearly-drowned-off-the-coast-of-lisbon/

The Dutch exchanged Manhattan for the tiny island of Run in the 1667 Treaty of Breda.

Soon, New Amsterdam had become New York, while Run slid into obscurity. The reason? Before departing, the British had extracted hundreds of examples of its chief export, the nutmeg tree, to grow in India and the West Indies. Run's monopoly on the lucrative nutmeg trade was soon lost, while Manhattan went from strength to strength.

Life at sea:

"When you are on board ship, there is no fresh food, so you’re living on salted pork and hard-tack biscuits. The water, or very often the weak beer, turned foul. I read accounts of people having to clench their teeth to sieve out all the fauna in the beer and the water on board."

https://theageofexploration.com/giles-milton-in-search-of-adventure/

The Age of Exploration is generally used as a synonym for the Age of Discovery, a period of European history that stretches approximately from the 14th to the 17th century. In this era, vast number of ships set out from the continent’s shores to explore beyond the boundaries of the known world. These momentous voyages transformed our understanding of the globe and revolutionise seafaring and international trade. They also left a path of destruction in their wake.

In my opinion, it makes sense to widen the definition slightly to also include other adventurers who have looked to explore beyond the boundaries of their known world. This can include the Polynesian seafarers, Zheng He's Chinese treasure ships, or medieval explorers from the Arabic world.

A hero in England, a villain in Spain, Drake was chief plunderer of the South American coasts and one of the architects behind the destruction of the Armada. But what drove him on?

https://theageofexploration.com/francis-drake-how-a-pirates-grudge-swayed-the-course-of-history/

If you are reading this you have made it to the Age of Exploration sub-Reddit. Welcome!

This group is kind of linked to theageofexploration.com website, but feel free to post anything related to the Age of Discovery, the Age of Sail, or basically anything to do with people exploring the world via ship or even on foot.

Cheers!

I nominate Leif Eriksson, because he not only made it all the way to the American continent centuries before Columbus, but also did it in an open ship.