When I was ending high school I was interested in ancient history and Greek art. As I recall, back then Iran was still Persia. It was back in 1935 that Shahenshah Reza Pahlavi requested that his country be officially called Iran but world wide it was still called Persia. Why would Reza Pahlavi call himself Shah-en-shah, king of kings, and why did the country drop a fascinating name for a mundane, Iran? Lately these mysteries were unravelled.
Persia happens to be what Greeks called that country, not what they called themselves.The name “Iran” has its roots in ancient history. It is not strange to get one’s name from foreign sources.
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, navigator, and cartographer from Florence. That’s where America got its name, from his charts! Venezuela also has Italian roots.
According to the most popular and accepted explanation, in 1499, an expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda visited the Venezuelan coast. The stilt houses in the area of Lake Maracaibo reminded the Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, of the city of Venice, Italy, so he named the region Veneziola, or “Little Venice.”" The Spanish version of Veneziola is Venezuela.
Yachts are called yachts because English royalty could not pronounce the Dutch words jacht boot which means chase or hunt boat. It was the name of the fast sailboats the Dutch used to catch smugglers and a present made to the English royals.
Shahenshah
King of kings explains a lot about Iran. It was not a melting pot like America but a federation of kingdoms much like America was a federation of 13 colonies. When the mullahs took over the independence of the many kingdoms was lost to dictatorial Islamic rule. No wonder that are having a civil war.
The Captain