Rounding of Cape Horn (Schouten and Le Maire)
Rodeo del cabo de Hornos (Schouten y Le Maire)
- Date
- enero de 1616 · confidence high
- Place
- Cape Horn, Hornos Island, Chile
- Credited to
- Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire; confirmed by the Nodal brothers (1619)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A Dutch voyage that rounded the southern tip of America in open sea and showed that Tierra del Fuego was not part of a southern continent. It opened an alternative route to the Strait of Magellan outside the Dutch East India Company's monopoly.
Francis Drake (1578) and Francisco de Hoces (1525) may have sighted open sea to the south earlier; the Nodal brothers confirmed it in 1619. The name "Hoorn" comes from Schouten's home town.
What it led to
- the Cape Horn route for clippers and Pacific trade
- breaking the myth of a Terra Australis joined to Tierra del Fuego