Amerigo Vespucci (9 March 1451- 22 February 1512) was an Italian merchant, explorer and cartographer. He was the first person to explain that the New World discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was not the eastern area of Asia, but an unknown continent (the Americas).
America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. North and South America get this name from a feminized and latinized version of his first name, Americus.
Vespucci died of malaria.