On this day in 1639 the settlers in Hartford, Connecticut voted for the Fundamental Orders, a constitution which gave them the right to set up a parliament and raise their own taxes. It din't happen for a while of course because Connecticut actually belonged to the British crown. If the politicians in Britain had thought about it for a while, they wouldn't have made such a fuss. Did we really want, as part of our Empire, people who couldn't spell Hertford?
In other news ...
Wilhelm Schouten, the Dutch navigator, sailed his ship around the treacherous tip of South America 396 years ago today. It had already been sighted, but not sailed around, but the Englishman Walter Ralegh and the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan. Schouten named it Cape Hoorn after his birthplace in Holland. Thank God he wasn't born in Wijk bij Duurstede.
