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Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama was born in Portugal in 1469. Vasco de Gama is famous for his achievement of the first all water trade way between Europe and India.
vasco da gama Vasco Da Gama 1460-1524 Portuguese Explorer In the last years of the fifteenth century, an explorer set off from the Iberian Peninsula, full of grand
Vasco Da Gama Euology Paper In 1468 a great man was born. A man who would later change the world of trade. This man was Vasco da Gama. Vasco da gama was born in
Vasco da Gama Website Critique The first website I visited was www.nick.com authored by Viacom International, Inc. This website is partnered with the children's
Advents Advent of the Europeans Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. This marked the beginning of the European era in Indian
Submitted by powernaw on November 15, 2006
Category: History Other
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Vasco Da Gama
1460-1524
Portuguese Explorer
In the last years of the fifteenth century, an explorer set off from the Iberian Peninsula, full of grand illusions and hoping to reach India by going where no European had ever gone before. Though that statement would seem to describe the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) to the New World, it is equally true of a less famous expedition—from an American perspective, at least—that set sail five years later. This one was led by Vasco da Gama, who sailed under the Portuguese flag and rounded the southern tip of Africa to become the first European to reach the Indian subcontinent by sea.
Da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal, where his father was governor. As a member of the nobility, he led a Portuguese attack on French ships in 1492, and later served as a gentleman at the court of King Manuel I. Under the leadership of Manuel, the Portuguese continued the tradition, begun by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) and maintained sporadically ever since, of exploring the African coast. This had been done by bits and pieces, with each subsequent probe venturing just a bit further south, until Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450-1500) had rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the continent's southern tip in 1487-1488. Now Manuel was prepared to take the bold step of passing the Cape by and sailing across thousands of miles of open sea to India. Therefore on July 7, 1498, da Gama and his crew set sail from Lisbon aboard four ships.
Their goal was the city of Calicut (not to be confused with Calcutta) on the Malabar, or southwestern, coast of India, and da Gama took with him letters of introduction both to the ruler of Calicut and to Prester John. The latter, supposedly the ruler of a Christian kingdom, is now known to have been an utterly fictitious character, created by a sort of early urban legend around 1150; but people in da Gama's time did not know...
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