The images of Mars that the Mariner 9 spacecraft sent back to earth in the early 1970s were reproduced as maps according to rules that were first drawn up in 1569 by a frugal Dutchman. Those mapping rules have endured because, though wrong in significant ways, they have proved supremely useful. Gerard Kremer, who used the Latin name Mercator, was born in 1512, in the low countries. Taxes were punitive, especially when new armies and horses were needed to defend the mostly Protestant region from Catholic invaders. Poor and unsettled, the area was nonetheless at the centre of a vital trade route that ran the length of the Scheldt river, connecting Antwerp, and England to the west, with the inland wharves of Ghent, Brussels and Brabant.
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