The Cape of Good Hope is a hilly point of land at the southern tip of Africa. The sea off the Cape is often rough and stormy, so the Cape’s name doesn’t really describe it.
In 1488, when Portuguese explorer Bartholemeu Diaz became the first European to sail around the southern end of Africa, he called it the Cape of Storms. But the king of Portugal, who wanted to encourage other travelers to sail around Africa to India, renamed it the Cape of Good Hope.
In 1500, Diaz, himself, died in a storm off the very Cape he had discovered!
