Ortelius was an extensive traveler, having been through almost all of Europe, and in 1575 he was made official geographer by Phillip II of Spain, the same king responsible for the failure of the Spanish Armada. Ortelius’ family had originally been from Augsburg, but with the accusations of being Protestant his family relocated when he was 7 years old.
On this day May 20th, in 1570, Abrhama Ortelius publishes the first modern atlas. Nowadays we have the ability to googlemap anything we’d like, but obviously five centuries ago there wasn’t this luxury. Ortelius titled his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theater of the World).
Ortelius actually referenced many others’ peoples work and other cartographers, and cited them as sources. He was also one of the first people to piece together the puzzle like shape of continents and hypothesized that at one point all these continents were one land mass, the official term being Pangaea. This has proven to be fact. His atlas had many editions and eventually was improved. His atlas was one of the most popular publications of his epoch.