50 Fun Facts About Vasco Da Gama

What is Vasco da Gama most famous for?

The first sea route from Europe to India took da Gama round Africa in 1497-99 and let Portugal buy spices in Asia itself, cutting out the middlemen of the overland trade.

In which small port town in southwest Portugal was Vasco da Gama born?

Sines was governed by his father. The king later granted da Gama the town, but the knightly order that owned it refused to give it up, and he never became its lord.

Which Portuguese captain rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, a decade before da Gama sailed on to India?

Bartolomeu Dias never saw India himself: in 1500 he sailed with the follow-up fleet and was lost in a storm off the very cape he had been first to round.

Which king dispatched two spies overland via Egypt in 1487 to scout India's spice markets ahead of a sea voyage?

John II of Portugal sent Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva out posing as merchants; Covilhã reached India's spice ports years before any Portuguese ship, but was never allowed home himself.

Da Gama's 1497 fleet had two new carracks, a storeship and which kind of small, fast ship?

A caravel, the Berrio, sailed with the two carracks and the storeship. It was the first ship home in July 1499, bringing the king the news that India had been reached by sea.

What was the name of da Gama's flagship on the first voyage?

São Gabriel carried da Gama to India, but he did not sail it home: on the last leg he handed it to his clerk and took passage on another ship with his dying brother.

Which disease struck da Gama's crew on the return crossing of the Indian Ocean in 1498-99?

Scurvy had eased on the way out once the crew got oranges at Mombasa, so on reaching East Africa again da Gama sent straight ashore for more, though for many of the sick it came too late.

On the outward voyage in 1497, da Gama's fleet spent a record 13 weeks out of sight of land on which ocean?

The Atlantic Ocean: from Cape Verde da Gama swung far out to sea to pick up the winds that blow towards the Cape, rather than fight the currents along the African coast as earlier captains had.

Which stretch of African coast did da Gama name because he passed it at Christmas 1497?

Natal means Christmas in Portuguese. The name stuck for five centuries and survives in KwaZulu-Natal, the South African province that includes Durban.

When the Sultan of Mozambique first welcomed da Gama's crew in 1498, who did he take them for?

Fellow Muslims is what the sultan took the strangers for. When the town learned they were Christians the welcome turned into a plot against them, and da Gama sailed off firing his cannon at the shore.

In which friendly East African port did da Gama hire the pilot who guided him across the Indian Ocean?

Malindi's ruler, a rival of nearby Mombasa, saw the newcomers as useful allies: he supplied the pilot and sent an ambassador back to Portugal with the fleet.

Which famous Arab navigator is often, but wrongly, said to have piloted da Gama to India?

Ibn Majid was the most celebrated Arab navigator of the age and wrote a shelf of sailing guides, but researchers now doubt he ever met da Gama, let alone showed him the way.

Near which Indian port city, the Malabar Coast's great spice market, did da Gama's fleet anchor in May 1498?

Calicut, today's Kozhikode, was the prize, yet after a whole summer of talks da Gama sailed home without the trade treaty he had been sent to win.

Asked what had brought them to India, da Gama's men gave what famous answer?

'Christians and spices' was the reply. The men expected to find Eastern Christians, and at first took a Hindu temple for a church, praying before an image they believed was the Virgin Mary.

What title did the Hindu ruler da Gama met in India in 1498 hold?

The Zamorin received da Gama with a grand procession, then insisted the Portuguese pay customs duty like any other traders, and the talks ended without a treaty.

Why did da Gama's gifts fail at the Indian court?

They were trivial: cloth, hats, sugar and honey. Court officials laughed at the present, saying the poorest merchant from Mecca gave more and that a king's gift should be gold.

Da Gama crossed the Indian Ocean to India in 23 days; about how long did the return crossing take?

3 months, against 23 days going out. Da Gama ignored local advice and sailed before the monsoon winds had turned, so the fleet spent weeks becalmed or beating into headwinds.

Why did da Gama burn the São Rafael in January 1499?

Too few men left to sail three ships: the crossing from India had killed so many of the crew that da Gama burned one vessel and shared its survivors out between the other two.

What did the sultan of a friendly Kenyan port allow da Gama to erect there?

A padrão, or stone marker: a limestone cross bearing Portugal's arms. Neighbours objected and the sultan took it down, but it was later set up again on a headland, where it still stands.

Where did da Gama bury his brother Paulo, who died on the voyage home?

In the Azores, at Angra on the island of Terceira. Da Gama had sent his flagship on without him so he could stay with his dying brother, and reached Lisbon weeks after the news of his own success.

Which king rewarded da Gama with a pension and the title Dom on his return in 1499?

Manuel I lost no time in spreading the news: the same month the first ship came home, he wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Columbus's patrons, to say his captains had reached India.

Which grandiose title did Portugal's king give da Gama?

Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia and India was modelled on 'Admiral of the Ocean Sea', the title Castile had given Columbus a few years earlier for his own voyage west.

Which captain led the follow-up fleet to India in 1500, sighting Brazil on the way out?

Pedro Álvares Cabral swung so far west on the way out that he struck Brazil. In India his trading post was stormed and its men killed, which set up da Gama's second voyage as one of revenge.

What did da Gama demand of an Indian ruler in 1502 before any peace talks?

Expel the city's Muslim merchants, he demanded, blaming them for the killing of Portuguese traders there in 1500. The ruler refused to turn away his long-established trading partners.

What did da Gama do to a captured Muslim pilgrim ship in 1502?

Burned it with the passengers aboard, several hundred people, after stripping the ship of its cargo. Eyewitnesses in his fleet recorded it and it fixed his name for cruelty, though some historians think the accounts exaggerated.

What did da Gama's fleet do to an Indian city that defied him in 1502?

Bombarded it from the sea; da Gama also had dozens of captives hanged from the yardarms of his ships.

Which East African sultanate did da Gama's 1502 fleet force to pay tribute in gold?

Kilwa's gold had a second life: back in Lisbon a goldsmith worked the tribute into the Belém Monstrance, still one of Portugal's great treasures.

Who was made the first Viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, a post da Gama did not hold until 1524?

Francisco de Almeida never got home to enjoy the honour: sailing back in 1510 he was killed in a skirmish with Khoikhoi herders near the Cape of Good Hope.

Which explorer had just defected to Spain when da Gama threatened to do the same, winning himself a title?

Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese veteran of the Indies who felt unrewarded, had taken his plan for a westward voyage to Spain. Rather than lose da Gama as well, the king gave way.

What noble title did da Gama receive in 1519 after years of petitioning?

Count of Vidigueira made da Gama lord of two towns that the Duke of Braganza gave up for him, his consolation for the home town he had been promised twenty years earlier and never received.

Which king appointed da Gama Viceroy of India in 1524?

John III sent the ageing explorer out to clean up a colonial government riddled with corruption, and da Gama set about replacing its officials as soon as he landed.

What is da Gama said to have cried when a quake shook his fleet in 1524?

'Even the sea trembles before us!' is the boast a Portuguese chronicler records him making to calm his crews. One terrified sailor leapt overboard, thinking the ship had run aground.

In which Indian city did Vasco da Gama die in December 1524, soon after arriving as viceroy?

Cochin, where he was buried in the Franciscan church; as he had asked, his remains were shipped home to Portugal some years later.

Where have da Gama's supposed remains lain since being moved in 1880?

The Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon stands where da Gama's crews prayed before sailing in 1497. It received the bones in 1880, though the evidence that they were really his was later judged insufficient.

Which Lisbon landmark named after Vasco da Gama was the longest of its kind in Europe when it opened in 1998?

A bridge: the Vasco da Gama Bridge over the Tagus opened in 1998, five hundred years after he reached India, in time for the world's fair Lisbon staged to mark the anniversary.

Which 1494 treaty split the unexplored world between Portugal and Spain, leaving the route round Africa to Portugal?

The Treaty of Tordesillas drew a line from pole to pole west of Cape Verde: new lands beyond it went to Spain and those to the east to Portugal, which is why Spain's captains sailed west while da Gama went east.

Da Gama's son Cristóvão was captured and executed in 1542 while fighting for which African empire?

Ethiopia's emperor had begged Portugal for help against an invading Muslim army. Cristóvão was captured and executed, but the survivors of his small force helped kill the invader the next year.

Which epic poem, Portugal's national epic, celebrates da Gama's voyage?

Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões was written by a man who knew the route: Camões sailed to India as a soldier in 1553 and spent years in the East before publishing the poem in 1572.

Which legendary ruler, long sought by Portugal's kings, were da Gama's crew overjoyed to hear lived near Mozambique?

Prester John was the Christian priest-king of medieval legend, and Portugal hoped for his help against Islam; told at Mozambique that he lived not far inland, the crew wept for joy.

Which composer's 1865 grand opera L'Africaine features Vasco da Gama as a leading character?

His working title was simply Vasco da Gama; Plácido Domingo sang the role in San Francisco in 1989.

Which South African musician sang 'Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine' on his 1976 album Colonial Man?

Hugh Masekela recorded the album in the United States during three decades of exile from apartheid South Africa; another of its anti-colonial songs takes aim at Cecil Rhodes.

A port city named after Vasco da Gama lies in which Indian state?

Goa was a Portuguese colony for four and a half centuries, until India took it in 1961; its port city of Vasco da Gama has kept the explorer's name all the same.

A shipwreck identified off Oman in 2016 is believed to be which vessel from da Gama's 1502-03 fleet?

The Esmeralda was commanded by da Gama's uncle Vicente Sodré, who stayed behind in 1503 to prey on Arab shipping and was wrecked on the Omani coast that May.

Which military order did da Gama belong to, as his father had before him?

Santiago owned his home town, which is why a royal grant of it to da Gama came to nothing: the order's master would not let a king give away its property.

What was da Gama's first recorded royal mission, in 1492?

Seizing French ships in Setúbal and the Algarve was the king's reprisal after the French took a Portuguese ship carrying gold from Africa, and da Gama carried it out with great speed.

Which spice was the main cargo Portugal shipped home from India's Malabar Coast after da Gama's voyage?

Pepper grew along the Malabar Coast itself, which made its ports the hub of the trade; cloves and nutmeg came from islands thousands of kilometres further east.

Which republic virtually monopolised Europe's overland spice trade before da Gama's sea route?

Venice bought its spices from Muslim merchants in Egypt and Syria, who had brought them up the Red Sea; by sailing round Africa, Portugal cut out every one of those middlemen.

What event in 1869 drew most Europe-Asia shipping away from the Cape route da Gama pioneered?

The opening of the Suez Canal did not quite retire da Gama's route: whenever the canal is shut, as it was from 1967 to 1975, ships go back to rounding the Cape.

Which Somali city did the diarist of da Gama's first voyage describe as a large town of many-storeyed houses?

Mogadishu impressed the diarist with its tall houses and palaces, but the fleet did not stop: the ships fired off their guns as they passed and carried on down the coast.

Da Gama's pilot to India is often called an Arab, but Portuguese chroniclers say he came from which Indian region?

Gujarat's merchants traded all along the East African coast; the chronicles name the pilot Malemo Cana.