Cape of Good Hope
- (geography) A piece or point of land, extending beyond the adjacent coast into a sea or lake; a promontory; a headland.
There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the
Atlantic and
Indian Oceans. In fact, the southernmost point is
Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the
east-southeast. The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water
Agulhas current meets the cold water
Benguela currentand turns back on itself—a point that fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and
Cape Point (about 1.2 kilometres east of the Cape of Good Hope).
When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1488 by
Portuguese explorer
Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish direct trade relations with the
Far East (although in his histories
Herodotus proves, disbelievingly, that some Phoenicians had done so far earlier than this
[1]). Dias (or Diaz) called the cape
Cabo das Tormentas. "Cape of Storms" was the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope".
[2]
The first European to reach the cape was the Portuguese explorer
Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, who named it the "Cape of Storms" (
Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed by
John II of Portugal as "Cape of Good Hope" (
Cabo da Boa Esperança) because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to
India and the East.
The land around the cape was home to the
Khoikhoi people when the Dutch first settled there in 1652. The Khoikhoi had arrived in these parts about fifteen hundred years before.
[citation needed] They were called
Hottentots by the Dutch, a term that has now come to be regarded as pejorative.
On 31 December 1687 a community of
Huguenots arrived at the Cape from the Netherlands. They had escaped to the Netherlands from France in order to flee religious persecution there; examples of these are Pierre Joubert who came from
La Motte-d'Aigues for religious reasons. The Dutch East India Company needed skilled farmers at the Cape of Good Hope and the Dutch Government saw opportunities for the Huguenots at the Cape and sent them over. The colony gradually grew over the next 150 years or so until it stretched for hundreds of kilometres to the north and north-east.
When the Dutch Republic, during the Napoleonic Wars, was occupied by the French in 1795, henceforth becoming their vassal and enemy of the British, the United Kingdom invaded and occupied the Cape Colony that same year; relinquished control of the territory in 1803; only to return and reoccupy the Cape
on 19 January 1806. The territory was ceded to the British in the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 and was thereafter administered as the
Cape Colony. It remained a British colony until being incorporated into the independent
Union of South Africa in 1910 (now known as the Republic of South Africa).
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons,
Dias Cross and
Da Gama Cross, to commemorate
Vasco da Gamaand
Bartolomeu Dias as explorers who as mentioned were the first explorers to reach the cape. When lined up, the crosses point to Whittle Rock (
34°14.8′S 18°33.6′E), a large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in False Bay. Two other beacons in
Simon's Townprovide the intersection.
Strait of Magellan
1.
a narrow passage of water connecting two seas or two large areas of water.
"the Strait of Gibraltar"
-
The
Strait of Magellan (also called the
Straits of Magellan ) is a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland
South America and north of
Tierra del Fuego. The
strait is the most important natural passage between the
Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, but it is considered a difficult route to
navigate because of the unpredictable winds and currents and the narrowness of the passage.
Discovery by Europeans[edit]
On March 22, 1518, the expedition was organized in
Valladolid, naming Magellan captain general of the fleet and governor of all the lands discovered, and establishing the privileges of Magellan and his business associate Ruy Falero. The fleet would become known as the "Armada de las Molucas" or "Fleet of the Moluccas". The expeditionary fleet of 5 ships set sail from
Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519.
The five ships included
La Trinidad (100 to 110 barrels) under the command of Magellan;
La San Antonio(120 barrels) under the command of
Juan de Cartageña;
La Concepción (90 barrels) under the command of Gaspar de Quezada (
Juan Sebastián Elcano served as boatswain);
La Victoria (85 barrels) under the command of Luis de Mendoza; and
La Santiago, under command of Juan Rodríguez Serrano.
Magellan's ships entered the strait
on November 1, 1520,
All Saints' Day, and it was initially called
Estrecho de Todos los Santos (Strait of All Saints). Magellan's chronicler,
Antonio Pigafetta, called it the
Patagonian Strait, and others
Victoria Strait, commemorating the first ship entering it.
[1] Within seven years it was being called
Estrecho de Magallanes in honor of Magellan.
[1] The
Spanish Empire and the
Captaincy General of Chile used it as the southern boundary of their territory. The first Spanish colony was established in 1584 by
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who founded
Nombre de Jesús and
Rey Don Felipe on the northern shore of the strait. These towns suffered severe food shortages, and when the English navigator Sir
Thomas Cavendish landed at the site of Rey Don Felipe in 1587, he found only ruins of the settlement. He renamed the place
Port Famine. Other early explorers included
Francis Drake. The strait was first carefully explored and thoroughly charted by
Phillip Parker King, who commanded the British survey vessel
HMS Adventure, and in consort with
HMS Beagle spent five years surveying the complex coasts around the strait. This survey was presented at a meeting of the
Royal Geographical Society in 1831.
[citation needed]
English
A good friend of mine suggested pronoun songs by user marykbry on CCC. We have LOVED these songs. We sang them all week and they are helping us keep our pronouns separated. You can make your search so you can look for mp3's posted by marykbry. We listened to the reflexive pronoun song today in class.
Science Experiment
Bible Verse to add to your solar system:
The Heavens declare Gods glory
We discussed two main words today. What is a solar system? And what does proportional mean?
pro·por·tion·al
prəˈpôrSHənl/
adjective
1.
corresponding in size or amount to something else.
An example of something that is disproportionate:
The people at the bottom of the Leaning Tower are proportionate to it in size. The boy is disproportionate.
Our proportional solar system last week and this week had to be measured to be a tiny model of the real thing.
You can take a simple recipe and double it or half it to discuss this too. It's still the same thing just more of it or less of it depending on how you measure out the recipe. You have to double or half all the ingredients. We had to make all of the measurements smaller by the same amount to make our small version of the solar system.
Planet Songs on YouTube
Music
We are going over a TON of terms in music each week. Your child will get the same terms again next year in weeks 7-12 with tin whistle. I recommend going over all of them but focusing on some.
Getting fingers over the holes of the tin whistle takes some good fine motor skills. I will be more than pleased if our class can figure out how to get the left hand to play B, A, and G (the first 3 holes), and how to blow into the whistle so it's not cacophony (which they already know).
Here is a rhythm/note worksheet I made for my girls that you can print and use at home.
We may also get this theory book from Amazon. I used these books when I was a kid and they were fun. They are specifically for piano, but you can use them for theory whether you are learning piano or not.
There are some music theory apps that look like fun. I will recommend after I try some of the free ones.
Here are a few more free worksheets for you.
Practice writing treble clef and note name worksheets
note name flash cards - treble clef
Just for fun
