Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode number 10.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and this episode is Giovanni de Verrazano and the exploration of the Atlantic Coast.

We are recording this episode on February 24, 2021 in Austin, Texas.

There's a big suspension bridge at the entrance to the Upper Bay of New York Harbor, connecting

Staten Island to Brooklyn. I knew about the Verrazano Narrows Bridge even as a child, for though I grew up in Iowa,

my parents were New Yorkers and we would visit during the long academic summers.

Bizarrely, though, I have no clue when I learned that Verrazano was one of the early European

explorers of North America, and not just some revered Italian- American mayor or union boss in New York or some

such thing. I'm quite sure I didn't learn it in, you know, the last couple of weeks as I've been

reading about Verrazano, but I have no idea when I first knew it. Apparently my ignorance is not uncommon.

The name of the bridge was spelled incorrectly with only one Z for the first 53 years of its existence, finally corrected in 2018.

According to Wikipedia, this was because, wait for it, that was the spelling of Verrazana's name in the construction contract.

Now, I'm the first person to admit that my spelling has improved with spellcheck and the internet and stuff,

but if Verrazana were well known in the 1950s, one would think that the Italian Historical Association of America,

then based in Brooklyn and very involved in the naming of the bridge, would have gotten in both

Z's. I'll put a link to an amusing article about the naming and renaming of the bridge in the

show notes and on the history of the Americans.com.

There are two other things that seem to confirm Verrazano's relative obscurity.

First, apart from the bridge, I could find only one other use of Verrazano in an American place name,

a Verasano drive and a development in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Hernando de Soto, with whom we will consort a few episodes down the road,

has all sorts of towns and counties in at least 13 streets named after him.

...