[27 Facts About Maps – mental_floss on YouTube – List Show (317)] (Viewer #76,906)
Not because I’m crazy about maps, but because I like listening to passionate people – who know what they’re talking about – talk about what they know.
Although sometimes the opposite is not without its entertainment value…
This video improved my view of “Paper Towns,” which in the commercials looks seat-shiftingly hippie-ish.
Fun fact: Mercator was christened “Gerhard Krämer.” Gerardus Mercator was a then-fashionable Latinized version of his name.
His 1538 map was one of the earliest to bear the names of North and South America. (So “Kramerica Industries” might have become a real thing.)
It represented Asia and America as separate continents, which was not the norm at the time.
His 1569 map, introducing his now-famous projection, bore a note explaining his new method, which started: “TO THE READERS OF THIS CHART: GREETING!” — which is nice.
On his 1569 map, you can see the Appalachian Mountains clearly labeled “Apalchen,” which is astounding, considering he published this map fifty years (!) before settlers even sailed for Jamestown.
He was working on collecting in book form all his world maps when he died in 1594. The first word in his title was “Atlas,” in a playful reference to the mythological god. All collections of maps since then have been called atlases.