Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama (c. 1460s–1524) was a Portuguese mariner and nobleman who opened the first sea route from Europe to India. Born in Sines, he left Lisbon on 8 July 1497 with four ships and 170 men, swinging far into the South Atlantic and sighting no land for over three months, then the longest open-sea voyage.

At Christmas he named the coast Natal, took a Gujarati pilot at Malindi and reached Kozhikode on 20 May 1498. His gifts were trifling; the monsoon-battered return took over ninety days, scurvy killed about half the crew, and his brother Paulo died en route. He reached Lisbon in 1499 a hero.

In 1502 he returned with fifteen ships to avenge a Portuguese factory attack, burning the pilgrim ship Mirim with over 400 aboard and bombarding Kozhikode. Viceroy of India under John III from 1524, he died of malaria at Cochin on 24 December.