

During this time, John II, the king of Portugal, sought a way to break through the spice trade between Europe and Asia. His first mission was to map a sea route to India via the southern coast of Africa. Vasco da Gama spent most of his life from around the age of twenty as a sea navigator. He married a woman of noble birth after his first voyage and had six sons and one daughter. He joined his father’s Order of Santiago around 1480. He is thought to have learned mathematics and navigation at Evora town. He was born to Estevao da Gama and Isabel Sodre in the period between 14 along with five brothers and one sister. Early Lifeĭetails of Vasco da Gama’s early life are not precisely known. Da Gama sailed with a crew of 170 and returned with only 54 - most of his men died from diseases like scurvy.

By the time he returned from his first voyage to India in 1499, he had spent 300 days at sea, more than two years from home, and had covered a distance of 24,000 miles. Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese navigator and explorer who became the first person to sail directly from Europe to India. Vasco da Gama followed Chandan to reach the shores of India, a fact that was hidden by europeans for many years.Vasco da Gama – Famous Explorers Illustration of Vasco de Gama. Listening to this, the trader said that he was going back to India the very next day and if he wanted, he could follow him. When the trader asked Vasco where he was going, the latter said that he was going to visit India.

When Vasco da Gama went to meet him, Chandan was sitting in ordinary attire, on a cot. He took an African interpreter to meet the owner of that ship Chandan, a Gujarati trader who used to bring pine wood and teak from India along with spices and take back diamonds to Cochin. Historians and scholars gathered at Gujarat’s port town Mandvi are discussing how a Kutchi sailor, Kanji Malam, navigated the commander to Calicut from Malindi on east African coast.Īccording to another story: He had recorded in his diary that upon his arrival at Zanzibar in East Africa he saw a docked ship three times bigger than his own. The fourth ship did not have a name as it was only used for storage.Īccording to one story: When he discovered Europe-to-India sea route in 1497, he had a Gujarati by his side to show him the way. The ships were named the San Gabriel, the Sao Rafael, and the Berrio. Here are some interesting facts about voyage of Vasco-Da-Gama:
