Bartolomeu dias biography expedition portal
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Dias
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An Ambitious Plan
Almost nothing is known about the life of Bartolomeu de Novaes Dias before 1487, except that he was at the court of João II, or King John II of Portugal (1455-1495), and was a superintendent of the royal warehouses. He likely had much more sailing experience than his one recorded stint aboard the warship São Cristóvão. Dias was probably in his mid- to late-30s in 1486 when King João II appointed him to head an expedition in search of a sea route to India.
Did you know? According to Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484-c. 425 B.C.), Egyptian pharaoh Necho II (d. 595 B.C.) sent Phoenician sailors out from the Arabian Gulf to sail around the African continent. Their journey took three years.
King João II was entranced by the legend of Prester John, a mysterious and probably apocryphal 12th-century leader of a nation of Christians somewhere in Africa whose kingdom included the Fountain of Youth. King João II sent out a pair of explorers, Afonso de Paiva (c. 1460-c. 1490) and Pêro da Covilhã (c. 1450-c. 1526), to search overland for the Christian kingdom in Ethiopia. King João II also wanted to find a way around the southernmost point of Africa’s coastline, so just a few months after dispatching the overland explorers, he sponsored Dias in an
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Münster’s map impression the accomplished reflects interpretation discoveries staff Portuguese explorers, Bartolomeu Diaz and Vasco da Gama. More round Münster’s emergency supply, Cosmographia.
Bartolomeu Dias
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Vasco da Gama
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A transpose of Continent from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia, published pretense Basel, Schweiz in 1559. Click group the artwork to misgiving a enhanced image