America's Birth Certificate

Engineers designed a case to protect the map that first used the word 'America' to describe the land masses now called North and South America. The air-tight container is made of two large sheets of aluminum and a double piece of non-reflective laminated glass. It also includes a system dedicated to maintaining the proper temperature and replacing all potentially destructive oxygen with inert argon gas.


Created in 1507, the Waldseemüller map is the first map to show a Pacific Ocean, the Western Hemisphere and a continent called America.

(via Neatorama)