The most southwestern point of the African continent. There is a common misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southernmost point of Africa. This is not true. The southernmost point is Cape Agulhas. In the 1480s, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias named the place Cabo das Tormentas (“Cape of Storms”). Years later, João II of Portugal renamed it Cabo da Boa Esperança (“Cape of Good Hope”), a more optimistic name for the sea route that many ships traveled to get between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.