Rare America map is found in Munich

Researchers in Munich have chanced upon a version of a 16th-century world map that was the first to use the name "America".

Librarians at Ludwig Maximilian University found a copy of the small map by Martin Waldseemueller wedged inside an unrelated 19th-century book. The sheet is one of only five known copies of the map that can be folded to resemble a globe.

Waldseemueller believed the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, rather than Christopher Columbus, discovered America and named the continent after him.

AP