what did vasco da gama do as and achivement

The explorer set sail in July with 4 ships from the port of Lisbon. This was to continue the work already started by Bartolomeu Dias, who was the first navigator to have rounded the Cape of Good Hope. This made all of Europe dependent on them since gold, spices and many other Eastern riches were well appreciated in all the continent, and they knew this so they charged high prices to the Europeans and for their ships to pass through their ports.Īs a way to counterbalance this, the Portuguese king, King Manuel I, decided to send a fleet that would search for the maritime route to India and chose Vasco da Gama to lead it. At the time the Muslims, especially the Ottoman Empire, held in their control the trade routes from the East, including India. The Historic Voyage Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash

His career must have been very remarkable, since almost 20 years later, he would be sent to command one of the most historic voyages in the world. It is supposed that, due to his stature, he had a good education and, since he was living on the coast, he also probably learned about sea navigation.īy 15, he was familiar with the trading ships that were docked in the ports and by 20 he had already managed to become the captain of a ship. His father was a knight in charge of the Sines Fortress, in the Alentejo coast, and his mother was a noblewoman. He was born in the 1460s, he was the third son in a minor noble family. Not much is known about Gama’s early life. Besides that, he is an unavoidable figure in History. He is a controversial historical figure, with the explorer being known to have committed several atrocities and being a violent person, besides the consequences of his travels. His first voyage was the longest ocean travel in the world at the time and he was always briefly the Viceroy of India, before dying. On the other hand, his discovery of the sea route to India made possible successful, future Portuguese trade.Ī map of Africa from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia, published in Basel, Switzerland in 1559.Known for being the first European to reach India by sea and thus connecting, for the first time, Europe and Asia by maritime trade, Vasco da Gama, the 1 st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer. His gifts to its ruler were not impressive enough. ĭa Gama’s attempt to trade in Calicut wasn’t very successful. He sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean. The Latin text in the bottom left-hand corner of the map tells the tale of Vasco da Gama. Dias' discovery paved the way for Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India. Ptolemy had been wrong to think that the Indian Ocean was land-locked. His voyage showed that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans flowed into each other.

In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope).

Münster’s map on the right reflects the discoveries of Portuguese explorers, Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama.

What did vasco da gama do as and achivement