The only more important event I know related to this town happened in the year of 1516. At that time, Radolfzell was apparently the place where America got its name: Here a monk named Martin Waldseemüller (or Waltzmüller, or Waltzenmüller) wrote the name "America" on the newly discovered continent on a worldmap he had created. The name "America" was chosen to the honor of the Italian discoverer Amerigo Vespucci, who had realized that the newly discovered "land" was a continent of its own, not "West India" as Columbus had thought.

Curiously enough, most of the current inhabitants of the town are not aware of this fact.

• for years, I was the happy owner of a VW Karmann Ghia oldtimer,
• I longly used a 11 cm (4.33-inch) Schiefspiegler for the observational part of what I do in amateur astronomy (hope to get this scope up again soon)
• my home computer is one of the last (and thus best) IBM PS/2's, running one of the most recent versions of OS/2 (currently Warp)
• now for a long time, I'm interested in the American Southwest, especially Arizona

A list of my professional paper publications