Martin Behaim
German navigator and geographer to the King of Portugal (1459-1507) · Historical Figures · Died at 47
Martin Behaim is read about 110 times a day, in 37 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 17 September 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He built the oldest globe still in existence - a 1492 snapshot of how Europeans saw the world just before Columbus sailed, already obsolete the day it was finished.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
Martin Behaim
Afrika in kartographischer Darstellung von Herodot bis heute
Behaim crater moon_b_177.jpg?width=1200)
Die Gartenlaube (1884) b 177
Gedenkleuchter für Martin Behaim
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In 1484, the famous Nuremberg patrician Martin Behaim undertook his important expeditions along the west coast of Africa in the service of the Portuguese. After the painting by Hauschild
Martin Behaim 1893About this person
Martin Behaim was a German textile merchant who found his way into the Portuguese court, advising John II on navigation and sailing to West Africa in an era when the Atlantic was still being mapped. In 1492, back in his native Nuremberg, he constructed the Erdapfel - a terrestrial globe that froze the European worldview at a hinge moment in history. The timing was cruel: while Behaim painted his sphere, Columbus was crossing an ocean the globe didn't know was there. What survives is not a triumph of foresight but a relic of the last instant before the map had to be redrawn.
Historical Figures born in the 1450s 6
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