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Show America's Certificate Of Birth Issued Here Famed as the place where the word "America" first Identified the New World, the small French village of St. Die (pronounced Sahn Dee-ay) is still suffering from wounds inflicted by retreating retreat-ing Nazi soldiers in the last days of World War II. Plans of U.S. citizens to aid in the reconstruction of St. Die may well forge a new link in the durable dura-ble old chain that has bound, the town to this continent for nearly 450 years. It was early in the Ib'th century that the St. Die geographer, Martin Mar-tin Waldseemuller, first traced the name "America" on a map showing a vague land mass beyond be-yond the great western sea. After studying letters by Amerigo Vespucci (Americus Vespucius) describing his voyages, voy-ages, Waldseemuller observed in his 52-page "Introduction to Cosmography," printed in 1507: "... I do not see what is to hinder us from calling it (the new continent) con-tinent) Amerigo or America . . . after its discoverer Americus, a man of sagacious mind .... Both Europe and Asia have got their names from women." Centuries later, in 1884, another anoth-er famous son of St. Die, French Prime Minister Jules Ferry, entered en-tered the pages of U.S. history to present one of the most enduring symbols of Franco-American friendship the Statue of Liberty. |