V339: Vespucci

A fable of how America got its name, and how it was named after someone who was a fraud, but the kind of fraud people love, the kind of fraud who knows how to please a crowd. Jack Hitt tells the racy and little-known story of how Amerigo Vespucci got his name all over the map of the western hemisphere by telling lies about what he found there — the type of lies which can be found today in the pages of Penthouse magazine.

Audio from This American Life
(10 minutes into program, 16 minutes long)

Note: The rest of the program wasn't that enjoyable for me. In fact, it pisses me off that it was called "Give The People What They Want" and the next two bits were about pornography and dieting. These two subjects are pretty distasteful to me. Gah. Much as I like Ira Glass, I really want to smack him sometimes. Even with the featured section, when you mean men, don't say people.