Person1469 – 1521
Manuel I of Portugal
King of Portugal who sent the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Cabral and built Portugal’s Asian trading empire
Where they went
3 related events
- 1
Portugal’s Vasco da Gama sailed round southern Africa and reached Calicut in India. A direct sea route from Europe to Asia was open, transforming world trade.
- 2
Bound for India, Cabral’s Portuguese fleet swung far west, sighted the Brazilian coast and claimed it for Portugal — the beginning of Portuguese Brazil.
- 3
Portugal’s Afonso de Albuquerque took Goa in India and Malacca, the key to Southeast Asian trade. Portugal sought to control the Indian Ocean spice trade through a network of fortified ports.
People who appear alongside
- Vasco da Gama1524
Portuguese navigator who rounded Africa and reached Calicut in India in 1498, opening the sea route to India
- Pedro Álvares Cabral1520
Portuguese navigator who reached Brazil on the way to India in 1500 and claimed it for Portugal
- Afonso de Albuquerque1453 – 1515
Governor of Portuguese India who took Goa, Malacca and Hormuz, linking Portugal’s naval bases across the Indian Ocean
Themes this person appears in
- Turkic-Islamic Empires and Other Civilizations1000 – 1533
From the Ghaznavid raids on India to the Mughal Empire and Suleiman I — five centuries in which Turkic-led Islamic empires took western Asia and India, while Africa, Southeast Asia and the Americas raised civilisations of their own
- The Age of Discovery1415 – 1600
From Ceuta to the Manila galleons — two centuries in which European ships crossed the oceans and bound the world together by sea