Vasco da Gama reaches India by sea

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sailed around Africa and reached Calicut in India. The sea route allowed Europeans to trade directly with Asia.

Context

Da Gama left Lisbon in July 1497 with four ships, building on Bartolomeu Dias's earlier voyage around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Rather than hugging the African coast, his fleet swung far out into the Atlantic to catch favorable winds, then rounded the Cape in late 1497.

In East Africa the expedition obtained a pilot who guided them across the Indian Ocean, and the ships reached Calicut on India's Malabar coast in May 1498. Relations with the local ruler, the Zamorin, were mixed, partly because the Portuguese goods were poor trade items compared with the existing Indian Ocean commerce.

The return was costly, and many crewmen died, but the spices brought back covered the expedition's expense many times over according to common accounts. Portugal soon sent larger fleets and built a network of fortified bases, and da Gama's later voyages used force. The route challenged the Mediterranean and Red Sea spice trade that Venice and Muslim merchants had long controlled.

Da Gama returned to Lisbon in 1499, and the king rewarded him with titles and a pension. Only two of the four ships and fewer than half the original crew are generally said to have made it back, though counts differ by source.