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Vasco da Gama
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Vasco da Gama Article

Vasco da Gama, 1st count da Vidigueira summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Vasco da Gama.
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da GamaKnight of the Order of Christ, detail identified as Vasco da Gama, Portuguese school, first half of the 16th century; in the National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon.

Vasco da Gama, 1st count da Vidigueira, (born c. 1460, Sines, Port.—died Dec. 24, 1524, Cochin, India), Portuguese navigator. On his first voyage to India (1497–99), he traveled around the Cape of Good Hope with four ships, visiting trading cities in Mozambique and Kenya en route. Portugal’s King Manuel I acted quickly to open trade routes with India, but a massacre of Portuguese in India caused him to dispatch a fleet of 20 ships in 1502, led by da Gama, to establish Portuguese supremacy in the region. Da Gama, then an admiral, forced allegiance along the way from local rulers and attacked Arab shipping. After various battles, he secured obedience to Portuguese rule and returned home. In 1524 he was appointed Portuguese viceroy in India but died shortly after arriving in Goa. His voyages to India opened the sea route from western Europe to the East.

Goa, India
Portuguese India Summary
Portuguese India, name once used for those parts of India which were under Portuguese rule from 1505 to December 1961. Portuguese India consisted of several isolated tracts: (1) the territory of Goa with the capital, a considerable area in the middle of the west coast of India; (2) Damão, or Daman,
Portugal
Portugal Summary
Portugal, country lying along the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. Once continental Europe’s greatest power, Portugal shares commonalities—geographic and cultural—with the countries of both northern Europe and the Mediterranean. Its cold, rocky northern coast and
Western colonialism Summary
Western colonialism, a political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world. The age of modern colonialism began about 1500, following the European discoveries of a sea route around Africa’s southern coast (1488) and of
Flag of India
India Summary
India, country that occupies the greater part of South Asia. It is made up of 28 states and eight union territories, and its national capital is New Delhi, built in the 20th century just south of the historic hub of Old Delhi to serve as India’s administrative center. Its government is a