Amerigo Vespucci: Forgotten Namesake of America

Jul 1, 2023

0h 50m

★ 8.5

Overview

Everyone knows Columbus, but few know Vespucci. And yet, the continent of America was named after the banker and explorer Amerigo Vespucci. This film attempts to find the truth about the almost unknown Italian – was he a swindler, as was later claimed, or a daring navigator who first recognised the significance of Columbus' discovery?

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Atlantis-Film

Amerigo Vespucci: Forgotten Namesake of America Trailers

Cast

Amerigo Vespucci

Michele Guidi

Alonso de Hojeda

Tommaso Giusto

Christoph Kolumbus

Pedro Álvarez Molina

Self - Narrator (voice)

Sascha Rotermund

Frank Latimore is cast as Balboa, the heroic Spanish explorer who discovers the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, he must pacify the wrath of his enemies and battle his way through a forest inhabited by savage natives. This one features some really nice battles, stunning ocean photography, and tolerable reconstruction of historic events.

7.5

Eastern Memories

Jan 30, 2018

At the turn of the 19th and 20th century Finnish philologist G. J. Ramstedt travelled around Mongolia and Central-Asia. In this documentary Ramstedt’s memoirs are heard in the modern day setting, where tradition is replaced with hunger for money, and deserts give way to cities.

6.3

Stanley and Livingstone

Aug 18, 1939

When American newspaperman and adventurer Henry M. Stanley comes back from the western Indian wars, his editor James Gordon Bennett sends him to Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, the missing Scottish missionary. Stanley finds Livingstone ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume.") blissfully doling out medicine and religion to the happy natives. His story is at first disbelieved.

0.0

Northern Travelogues

Mar 7, 2019

In 1917 Finnish explorer Sakari Pälsi travelled to Northeastern Siberia carrying a cinematograph and 13,000 feet of film with him. The journey produced a unique documentary film and a travelogue. A hundred years later director Kira Jääskeläinen returns to the Bering Strait in Pälsi's footsteps. Combining old and new film footage, Pälsi's notes and the stories of the local indigenous peoples, the film highlights the story of the Chukchi and Siberian Eskimos from bygone days till today.

10.0

Little Karim

Jan 1, 1985

No overview available.

6.0

Amundsen

Feb 15, 2019

The story of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, the leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole in 1911, and the first person to reach both the North and South Poles in 1926. Follows his all-consuming drive as a polar explorer and the tragedy he brought on himself and others by sacrificing everything in the icy wastelands to achieve his dream.

6.5

Explorer

Jul 14, 2022

Sir Ranulph Fiennes is credited as being the World’s Greatest Living Explorer. Among his extraordinary achievements, he was the first to circumnavigate the world from pole to pole, crossed the Antarctic on foot, broke countless world records, and discovered a lost city in Arabia. He has travelled to the most dangerous places on Earth, lost half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and was nearly cast as James Bond. But who is the man who prefers to be known as just ‘Ran’?

6.3

Columbus DNA: His True Origin

Oct 10, 2024

One of the most important and exciting historical research of all time, the study of the DNA of the navigator Christopher Columbus, finally answers two fundamental questions: where do his bones rest? What is his true origin?

4.9

Magellan

Sep 10, 2025

In the 16th century, young and ambitious Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães rebels against the power of King Manuel I, who doesn't support his dream of discovering the world. He persuades the Spanish Crown to fund his bold expedition to the fabled lands of the East. The voyage is exhausting beyond expectations, with hunger and mutiny pushing the crew to their limits. Upon reaching the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, Magalhães' mind changes. He becomes obsessed with conquest and conversion, which sparks violent uprisings beyond his control.

0.0

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre

Sep 20, 2024

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

0.0

Atrabilis

Jun 22, 2022

No overview available.

4.3

The Brave Seven

Mar 4, 1936

Six polar explorers arrives to a remote island in Arctic for a year-long scientific expedition. When their ship departs, they unpack only to find a young stowaway, who romanticized Arctic heroes, and tried to join them on multiple occasions finally succeeding. That's how six became seven. Life of polar explorers is tough, and full of danger. During one year they are largely isolated from the mainland, and should survive using their resourcefulness, smarts, knowledge, and existing supplies with occasional unreliable radio communications. The Seven are resilient, cheerful, they forged a true friendship. Now they are ready to face the unforgiving Arctic.

5.6

Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey

Apr 19, 2008

Plant Explorer Richard Evans Schultes was a real life Indiana Jones whose discoveries of hallucinogenic plants laid the foundation for the psychedelic sixties. Now in this two hour History Channel TV Special, his former student Wade Davis, follows in his footsteps to experience the discoveries that Schultes brought to the western world. Shot around the planet, from Canada to the Amazon, we experience rarely seen native hallucinogenic ceremonies and find out the true events leading up to the Psychedelic Sixties. Featuring author/adventurer Wade Davis ("Serpent and the Rainbow"), Dr. Andrew Weil, the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir and many others, this program tells the story of the discovery of peyote, magic mushrooms and beyond: one man's little known quest to classify the Plants of the Gods. Richard Evans Schultes revolutionized science and spawned another revolution he never imagined.

4.0

The American Dream: Europeans in the New World