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Vasco Da Gama
Vasco Da Gama
Vasco da Gama was best known for being the first to sail from Europe to India by rounding Africa's Cape of Good Hope.
Da Gama's voyage was only possible because of funding from Portuguese King Prince Henry. Prince Henry was keen on expanding Portugal's economy by funding a navigation school for European sailors. Building on the knowledge gained by the explorers funded by Prince Henry the Navigator, da Gama landed and traded in locales along the coast of southern Africa before reaching India on May 20, 1498.
Da Gama is responsible for finding sea routes that bypassed Ottoman merchants connecting Europeans directly to the Indian Ocean markets.
Cristoforo Columbus
Cristoforo Columbus
By the 1400's it was common knowledge that the earth was round. As Portuguese merchants began to dominate Indian Ocean trade routes, Italian sailor Christopher Columbus believed that sailing west around the planet would be a faster way to get to the Indian Ocean. He developed a plan to sail west to get to the east.
He went to Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who were intrigued with the idea. Portugal was their main rival and so they were eager to find an alternate route to the East. Eventually they gave Columbus the financing for the voyage.
In August of 1492, Columbus set sail. After two months, Columbus and his crew arrived in the present-day Bahamas, convinced this was India.
Columbus's voyage was a bust in the short term. The King and Queen of Spain expected a return on their investments, but here was no gold, no spices, no silk in the Americas. The Spanish monarchs would soon see that the Americas were full of other riches and in time, the Americas would make them tremendously wealthy.
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