Vasco da Gama
c. 1469–1524 · Portuguese navigator who opened the sea route from Europe around Africa to India.
Vasco da Gama was born in Sines, on the coast of Portugal, the son of a minor noble. For decades Portuguese sailors had been working their way down the coast of Africa, and in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded its southern tip. In July 1497, King Manuel I sent da Gama with four ships to reach India by sea. He swung far out into the South Atlantic to catch favorable winds, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and sailed up the east African coast. At Malindi he found an experienced pilot who guided the fleet across the Indian Ocean, and in May 1498 he reached Calicut on India's southwest coast. He reached Lisbon in 1499 with spices worth far more than the voyage cost. On a second voyage in 1502 he used brutal force against Arab and Indian ships and the city of Calicut. The sea route made Portugal rich and began centuries of European trade and empire in Asia. In 1524 he was sent to India as viceroy and died there that year.
Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1497 Sails from Lisbon
- 1498 Reaches Calicut, India
- 1499 Returns to Lisbon
- 1502 Second voyage
- 1524 Viceroy of India; dies at Cochin
Fun facts
- A crater on the Moon, the city of Vasco da Gama in Goa, India, and several football clubs are named after him. (Source: Vasco da Gama (Wikipedia))
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- His first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by sea around the southern tip of Africa. (Source: Vasco da Gama (Wikipedia))
- His ships sailed more than 10,000 kilometres of open ocean without sighting land, by far the longest such journey made up to that time. (Source: Vasco da Gama (Wikipedia))
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