The Oldest Surviving Globe — 12/27/20

927

Fact

Scott Schiller

The Erdapfel Globe (literally “Earth Apple” in German and sometimes called the Behaim Globe), is the world’s oldest surviving globe. Believed to have been created in 1492 by the 15th century German German mariner, artist, cosmographer, astronomer, philosopher, geographer and explorer Martin Behaim. It is not the first globe ever created but it is the oldest we currently know of still in existence. The globe is covered by painted parchment, on which beautiful little illustrative details were created by a team of painters and scribes. There are over 100 miniature objects and figures on the surface, such as flags, saints, kings on their thrones and animals such as elephants and camels. There are plenty of fantastic beasts too, such as a sea-serpent and a mermaid. The globe was completed before Columbus returned from his explorations of the Americas, thus it was inaccurate and not given much credit. It has been in storage for centuries and forgotten until recently. It now belongs the the German National Museum who is trying to digitize it for a new generation of map lovers. [Source: AtlasObscura.com]

The Phantom Island of Hy-Brasil – 09/28/20

1052

Fact

Scott Schiller

We’re all familiar with the legend of the lost continent of Atlantis, but few have heard of the spectral isle of Hy’ Brasil. This small island is featured on all maps drawn up between 1325 to 1595, and they all show it in the same location. The Genoese cartographer Dalorto plotted a tiny island off the western coast of Ireland; on successive sailing charts, it appears southwest of Galway Bay. A 1480 Catalan map labels the island as “Illa de Brasil”; it’s most often referred to as Hy-Brasil, though its name has many variants: Hy-Breasal, Hy-Brazil, Hy-Breasil and Brazil. Many historians believe the name is taken from the word Breasal, Celtic for “the High King of the World.” The island has been shrouded in mystery, literally and figuratively, for centuries — it was said to be cloaked in heavy fog but for a single day every 7 years. Those who claimed to have encountered the island (they are a very select few) reported it to be circular and bisected by a large channel or large river. A few actually landed on the island and reported it to be populated by an advanced civilization with abundant wealth. Some have referred to […]

Voyages of Capt Cook – 04/15/20

1857

Fact, Highlight

Scott Schiller

I have always wanted to try creating a font. I always thought it would be a fun and fabulous thing to do, to use on my maps or just to know what the process is like. So for my first attempt I took inspiration from — you guessed it — a map! In 2019 I toured the Special Collections Room in the American Geographical Society Library (located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). During my visit I marveled at the sketching and lettering style on some original maps by James Cook (you can view digitized versions of them here). I immediately thought his handwriting would make for a wonderful font. So I traced some of his letters using Adobe Illustrator and used Calligrahr to build a simple font family I named “Capt Cook” (there already exists a font called Captain Cook, it’s a tattoo font by Graphic River inspired by Cook’s encounters with the tattooed indigenous peoples of the South Pacific. FACT: James Cook was a naval captain, navigator and explorer who, in 1770, charted New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia on his ship HMS Endeavour. He later disproved the existence of Terra Australis, a […]

Wallachia, Transylvania and the Real Dracula – 1/13/20

1504

Fact

Scott Schiller

The new Dracula miniseries on Netflix is getting a lot of attention (I’ve watched it once but think two viewings might help me understand it better). Though Dracula is a purely fictional creation, British author Abraham Stoker named his infamous character after a real person who happened to have a taste for blood: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia ,or as he is better known, Vlad the Impaler. By most accounts, Vlad III was born in 1431 in what is now Transylvania, the central region of modern-day Romania. You can visit the castle today, it’s nestled in the stunning Carpathian Mounstains, a mere 50 miles north-northwest of Bucharest, Romania. [Source: LiveScience.com]

Mapping the Apollo 11 Landing Site – 7/

1857

Fact

Scott Schiller

Tennessee native Lynn Hardin was 19 years old when he started working for the Army Map Service. That was in July 1963 when he was fresh out of high school. He knew next to nothing about maps, but soon he was selected for one of the most important tasks of the Apollo 11 space program: help locate the best landing site for Armstrong and Aldrin to land the Lunar Module, The Eagle. You can read more about his fascinating story here. Click here for more detailed maps of the Apollo 11 lunar landing site.

Mapping a Revolution – 7/3/19

1742

Fact

Scott Schiller

“During the Revolutionary War, printed maps provided the public with the only pictorial representation of battles being fought in the American colonies. Through a powerful combination of text and image, maps conveyed precise details of battles and the geographic settings in which they took place. The majority of battle maps were printed in London where the printing trade was well-established. Printers in the colonies lacked the expertise, equipment, and supplies needed to produce maps.” [Source: NY Historical Society]

United Nations of Pangea – 6/12/19

1952

Fact

Scott Schiller

Approximately 335 million years ago (give or take), the Earth was entirely one ocean with only one humongous blob of land which scientists have named Pangea. Around 175 million years ago, plate tectonics began to carry various chunks of Pangea this way and that, ultimately creating the continental shapes we know and love today. Artist Massimo Pietrobon wanted to know where modern countries would fall within Pangea if it still existed today, so he created a conceptual map called Pangea Politica. Admittedly, his map is speculative and imaginative, but from what I can tell it’s not at all that far from the truth! Check it out here to see how different the world was back then!

America’s First Female Mapmaker – 6/7/19

1639

Fact

Scott Schiller

In 1828, Emma Willard was 41 years old, only slightly older than the United States itself. She is one of the first, perhaps the very first, female mapmaker in America. A teacher, pioneer of education for women, and founder of her own school, Willard was fascinated with the power of geography and the potential for maps to tell stories. In 1828, she published a series of maps as part of her History of the United States, or Republic of America, which showed graphically how the country, as she understood it, had come to be. It was the first book of its kind—the first atlas to present the evolution of America. Emma is famous for a map she made which documented the history and movement of Native American tribes in the precolonial past. She included it in an atlas which also told a story about the triumph of Anglo settlers in this part of the world. She helped solidify, for both her peers and her students, a narrative of American destiny and inevitability. [Source: AtlasObscura.com]

Mapping Wanderwörter – 3/6/19

1740

Fact

Scott Schiller

Wanderwörter is a German word that describes the borrowing or adoption of words by travelers moving from one geographic location to another, often along trade routes. As an example, the popular beverage Coke is derived from the Spanish word coca. That word is derived from the local name of a South American plant, kuka. That word hitchhiked with the Spaniards as they traveled to and from South America. Check out this map of some familiar words and their origins here.

Visualizing the Moon, Pt. 2 – 3/4/19

1797

Fact

Scott Schiller

Last night’s lecture about the history of moon visualizations throughout history was very interesting! I learned many new things about the moon, and the mapping of it. I am energized to read more about selenography (the study of the surface and physical features of the Moon. Historically, the principal concern of selenographists was the mapping and naming of the lunar maria, craters, mountain ranges, and other various features.) [Source: Wikipedia.com]. There was a very cool thing that happened to me while at the event: While I was examining the many maps and atlases of the moon that were on display I unexpectedly caught site of a crater named…Schiller! Once I spotted it, I was seeing it on every moon map I looked at. Part of the reason is that Schiller crater is very unique, being an oblong crater (whereas most of the Moon’s craters are circular). “Schiller was name after Julius Schiller, d. 1627. He was a German monk who authored an atlas of the sky in which the constellations were replaced by biblical characters and objects. His system was not adopted. Crater Schiller [51.8°S, 40.0°W] is a very odd ‘creature’: unique on the Moon!” [Source: maas.museum.com]

Geography Quiz! – 3/28/19

1947

Fact

Scott Schiller

Can you distinguish a bayou from a bay? A gulch from a canyon? Do you know the difference between a hill from a foothill? Geographical terminology is very specific! We may be able to easily define what a peninsula is, but what exactly is an isthmus? I recently encountered this very cool poster at the American Geological Society library on the UW-Milwaukee campus. I marveled at how well it visually defines a ton of geography terms. The magic of maps…one quick look can communicate volumes of information!

Mapping a Migraine – 3/4/19

1756

Fact

Scott Schiller

In the fall of 1854, a British university student named Hubert Airy experienced what we know today as an Optical Migraine — characterized by first a small blind spot in the center of your vision, followed by jagged, pulsating geometric bands of chromatic light, ending in a splitting headache. Have you ever experienced one? Airy later became a physician and published a description of these “auras” in a professional medical journal (he wasn’t the first to document these visual anomalies, his father did too some 5 years earlier). In addition to his article, he included drawings of the hallucinations that he saw during the episodes. What he didn’t know at the time was his drawings were surprisingly accurate maps of the visual cortex of the brain. “Airy’s drawing fits beautifully with our modern conception of how the visual cortex is organized.” [Source: National Geographic.com]

Literal Translation of Country Names – 2/2/19

1963

Fact

Scott Schiller

Argentina. Poland. Namibia. You may be familiar with these country names, but do you know what they really mean, in that country’s native language? Answers (in order): Land Beside the Silvery River. The People of the Fields. The Vast Place. The Australian company Credit Card Compare writes: “We live in a time of air travel and global exploration. We’re free to roam the planet and discover new countries and cultures. But how much do you know about the people who lived and explored these destinations in times past? Learning the etymology—the origin of words—of countries around the world offers us fascinating insight into the origins of some of our favorite travel destinations and the people who first lived there.” Check it out here. This is a fun geography lesson, and offers good trivia to show off at your next party. I love the colors and style of the map, too!

The Truth About Maps – 1/2/19

1723

Fact

Scott Schiller

Maps are, by definition, one person’s representation of the world. Every mapmaker has an agenda, showing some things and hiding others. No map is 100% objective. Thus, it is rather easy to create a map to reflect a bias, influence a perception or deceive the reader with false or misleading data. I came across this excellent article from CityLab about how maps can lie. Simon Garfield, author of On the Map, states, “We may be looking at something inaccurate, misleading, or incorrect without realizing it.” As an example: a map made in 1602 depicted California as an island floating in the Pacific; the map went unquestioned for some 200 years! Even the mighty Apple and Google maps have had errors. In 2010 Google fixed an error in its map of Central America that was blamed for Nicaragua’s accidental invasion of a disputed border area also claimed by Costa Rica. Also in 2010, a woman unsuccessfully sued Google for providing bad Google Maps directions after she was struck by a car while walking on a rural Utah highway with no sidewalk or pedestrian pathways. (Source: FoxNews.com) So, the next time you are looking at a map, it is best to keep in mind […]

Map of Attack on Pearl Harbor – 12/7/18

2416

Fact

Scott Schiller

It was 77 years ago today that the Japanese bombed the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This map, based on a Japanese original, shows the two waves of warplanes that descended on Oahu and Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The sneak attack forced the United States into joining the Allies in World War II. In total, 2,335 American servicemen were killed and 1,143 were wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk or run aground, including five battleships. All of the Americans killed or wounded during the attack were non-combatants, as there was no state of war when the attack occurred. (Source: Wikipedia.com) National Geographic’s website has a very interesting post with additional information and more maps here.

Happy Thanksgiving – 11/22/18

1791

Fact

Scott Schiller

The Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Harbor in 1620, after first stopping near today’s Provincetown. According to oral tradition, Plymouth Rock was the site where William Bradford and other Pilgrims first set foot on land. Bradford was the governor of Plymouth Colony for 30 years and is credited with establishing what we now call Thanksgiving. (Source: americanhistory.si.edu) This is an 18th-century map of New England by John Green (real name Braddock Mead), first published by Thomas Jefferys in London in 1755. The map contains insets with ‘A Plan of the Town of Boston’, and ‘A Plan of Boston Harbor’ with soundings and navigation marks, and a beautifully illustrated title cartouche depicting the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, with a large rock in the foreground inscribed, “Plymouth MDCXX” (Plymouth, 1620). (Source: battlemaps.us)

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