False Bay - History

History

Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 first referred to the bay as "the gulf between the mountains" (Schirmer, 1980). The name "False Bay" was applied early on (at least three hundred years ago) by sailors who confused the bay with Table Bay to the north. According to Schirmer, the confusion arose because sailors returning from the east (The Dutch East Indies) initially confused Cape Point and Cape Hangklip, which are somewhat similar in form. Hangklip was known to the early Portuguese seafarers as Cabo Falso, or False Cape, and the name of the bay derived from the cape.

Read more about this topic:  False Bay

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.
    Willa Cather (1876–1947)

    History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
    In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
    Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
    Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)

    Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)