Person · Portuguese navigator · Portugal
Vasco da Gama
Also known as Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama (c.1460-24 December 1524) led the first European sea voyage from Portugal to the Indian subcontinent, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and reaching Kappad near Calicut on 20 May 1498 — opening the Cape Route and ending the Venetian-Mamluk monopoly on the Mediterranean spice trade. He returned twice more, as commander of the second armada in 1502 (which bombarded Calicut and extracted treaty terms from the Zamorin and the Raja of Cochin) and as Viceroy of Portuguese India in 1524, dying in Cochin within three months of arrival. His body was returned to Portugal and lies at the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon.
- Date
- 1460–1524
- Function
- Travel & migration
- Patron dynasty
- Portuguese crown
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (2)
- Life routeVasco da Gama, Goa
Vasco da Gama died in Cochin as Viceroy on 24 December 1524 and was first buried at the Church of St Francis in Cochin; his body was returned to Portugal in 1538. The modern Goan town of Vasco da Gama carries his name.
- Life routeOld Goa
Da Gama's 1502 and 1524 expeditions landed and provisioned at Goa, which Afonso de Albuquerque made the capital of the Portuguese Estado da India in 1510 — twelve years after Da Gama's first voyage opened the Cape Route in 1498.
Sources
Standard biography.
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