Vasco da Gama
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Vasco da gama is one of the most known explorer. [1]'Vasco da Gama (c. 1462 – December 24, 1506) was a Portuguese sailor. He was the first European who went to India through the Cape of Good Hope at the southern end of Africa. He went to India three times by ship.
Vasco Da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal. His birthday was June 5th. According to some people's accounts, he was a knight in the 1490s in Sines.
On the 4 July 1497, da Gama left Lisbon with four ships: the São Gabriel, the São Rafael, the Berrio, and a storage ship of unknown name. He intended to sail to India. No European explorer before him had sailed further than the place that is now called South Africa. Vasco da Gama sailed around the bottom of the African continent. Da Gama's crew gave the South African coast they were passing the name Natal, which means "Christmas" in Portuguese. They did this because they sailed by it at Christmas. The coast is still called as Natal.
By January, da Gama's crew reached modern-day Mozambique, on the East African coast. Mozambique was controlled by Arabs because it was part of the Indian Ocean's network of trade. An angry crowd discovered that da Gama's men were not Muslims, so the crew continued north to Kenya. There, at Malindi, da Gama hired a pilot from India.
The pilot brought the Portuguese men to the city of Calicut on the southwest coast of India on May 20, 1498. Vasco da Gama was in danger because of a conflict with the ruler of Calicut. However, he escaped and returned to Portugal in September 1499. A few of his Portuguese sailors stayed in Calicut.
He is known for establishing Portuguese, and more broadly European, commercial and military presence in East Africa and in India. Da Gama is considered to be one of the most prominent European explorers of the early Age of Exploration whose actions opened the era of the European colonization of the Indian subcontinent.
Vasco da Gama went on his next trip in 1502. He found out that the people of Calicut killed the Portuguese he had left behind. During this trip, he attacked and stole from all the Arab and Indian ships he found in the Indian Ocean. Then, he went on to Calicut and took over that city, capturing a lot of wealth, pleasing the King of Portugal.
Vasco da Gama went on one last trip in 1504 to be the viceroy (governor) of Calicut, which was by that time a Portuguese colony. He died soon after he got there on Christmas Eve. He was not a pirate, but he looted and killed many men only to take revenge.
Vasco Da Gama Media
Portuguese discoveries and explorations: first arrival places and dates
Vasco da Gama leaving the port of Lisbon, Portugal
The route followed in Vasco da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499)
Monument to the Cross of Vasco da Gama at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
Pillar of Vasco da Gama in Malindi, in modern-day Kenya, erected on the journey
The arrival of Vasco da Gama at Calicut (Kozhikode), by Roque Gameiro, 1900.
Vasco da Gama before the Zamorin of Calicut (Kozhikode), by Veloso Salgado, 1898.
Landmark in Kappad, near Kozhikode
Outward and return voyages of the Portuguese India Run (Carreira da Índia). The outward route of the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias discovered in 1487, followed and explored by da Gama in the open ocean, would be developed in subsequent years.
