50 Fun Facts About Vasco Da Gama

What is Vasco da Gama most famous for?

His 1497-99 voyage round Africa and across the Indian Ocean opened Europe's sea trade with Asia and is counted a turning point in world history.

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

His father Estêvão was the town's civil governor; King Manuel later tried to give da Gama the town as a fief, and the knightly order that owned it refused to hand it over.

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

He got as far as the Fish River and proved the coast turned northeast; da Gama's job was to join that discovery to the spy reports from India.

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

Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva went east; the king wanted to break the Venetian near-monopoly on the overland spice trade.

What was the size of the fleet da Gama led out of Lisbon on 8 July 1497?

Only about 55 men and two vessels came home; the round trip covered more distance than the length of the equator.

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

A newly built carrack of 178 tons, it was one of two sister ships; his brother Paulo commanded the other.

Which vessel was the caravel nicknamed Berrio, commanded by Nicolau Coelho?

Coelho got home first, in July 1499, and personally broke the news to the king at Sintra.

What record did the fleet set by sailing over 10,000 km of empty ocean before sighting Africa again in November 1497?

Da Gama swung out into the South Atlantic to catch the westerlies Dias had found, rather than hugging the African coast.

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

The word carries the sense of the birth of Christ in Portuguese; the region kept the name for centuries.

How did da Gama gain an audience with the Sultan of Mozambique in March 1498?

His paltry trade goods failed as gifts, the townspeople grew suspicious, and he left firing his cannon into the city.

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

Its rulers were at odds with hostile Mombasa; the pilot was a Gujarati who understood the monsoon, not the famous Arab navigator of legend.

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

Contemporary accounts place him elsewhere, and at 77 he was too old for the trip.

On which date did da Gama's fleet reach the Malabar Coast of India?

They landed at Kappadu, near the city Europeans would call Calicut, after a 23-day crossing on the summer monsoon.

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

Da Gama even knelt before a statue in a Hindu temple believing it was the Virgin Mary; it was the goddess Parvati.

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

He received the visitors with a procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but the talks produced nothing.

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

Officials wondered where the gold and silver were, and Muslim merchants suggested he was a mere pirate, not a royal ambassador.

How long did the return crossing of the Indian Ocean take against the monsoon, when the outward crossing had taken just over three weeks?

Da Gama ignored local advice and sailed before the winter monsoon set in; roughly half the crew died and many of the rest had scurvy.

Why did da Gama scuttle the São Rafael off East Africa in January 1499?

The survivors were split between the two remaining ships.

What did the sultan of the friendly Kenyan port allow da Gama to erect there on the return trip in 1499?

Known locally as the Vasco da Gama Pillar, it seems to be the only one of his many padrões to survive.

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

He stayed by his sick brother on a Cape Verde island rather than sail home in triumph, and lingered in mourning at Angra before reaching Lisbon.

Which king rewarded da Gama with a hero's welcome, a pension and the title Dom on his return in 1499?

He also tried to give him his home town, which the knightly order that owned it refused to surrender, souring da Gama on his own order.

What grandiose title was da Gama granted in January 1502?

It echoed the ornate Castilian title Columbus had been given.

Who commanded the Second India Armada of 1500, whose factory in India was overrun with up to 70 Portuguese killed?

He bombarded the city in response, starting a war that da Gama was sent to prosecute two years later.

How large was the Fourth India Armada that da Gama led out in February 1502?

It was a family affair: his uncles Vicente and Brás Sodré and two brothers-in-law held commands, and a cousin followed with five more ships.

What did da Gama do to the Mirim, a ship carrying over 400 Muslim pilgrims, in October 1502?

The passengers offered a ransom that 'could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez'; only twenty children were spared, for forced conversion.

What did da Gama do to the high priest sent to negotiate with him in 1502?

He then bombarded the unfortified city for nearly two days and mutilated the crews of captured rice boats.

Which East African sultanate did the Fourth Armada reduce to tribute, extracting a large sum of gold?

The fleet also opened contact with the gold port of Sofala on the way out.

Who was made the first Viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, while da Gama was pointedly overlooked?

Da Gama had come home in 1503 without bringing the Indian ruler to heel, and his uncle then failed to protect the Cochin factory.

Whose defection to Spain in 1518 prompted da Gama to threaten the same, finally winning him a title from the king?

The king hurried to give him a county in 1519 rather than lose his 'Admiral of the Indies' to Castile.

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

The Duke of Braganza ceded him the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades for a payment.

Which king appointed da Gama Viceroy of India in 1524, only the second Portuguese governor to hold that title?

He wanted the 'magic of his name' to impose order after the corrupt governorship of Duarte de Menezes.

What did da Gama shout to reassure his terrified crews when an undersea earthquake shook the fleet off India in 1524?

The sea boiled and the ships pitched for about an hour; one sailor jumped overboard in panic and drowned.

How and where did Vasco da Gama die?

He had been viceroy for barely three months; his sons lost their posts immediately and sailed home.

Where have da Gama's remains supposedly lain since being moved in 1880 and again in 1898?

The 1880 transfer took the wrong bones, probably his great-grandson's; a family in Vidigueira still claims the real ones are hidden on their estate.

How was the great monastery at Belém, near the launch point of da Gama's first voyage, paid for?

It became the burial place of the Aviz kings, and Camões lies a few metres from the explorer he celebrated.

How many children did da Gama have with his wife Catarina de Ataíde?

Several sons became captains of Malacca and one rose to be governor of India.

Which of da Gama's sons was executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war of 1542?

Another son, Paulo, was killed in a naval action off Malacca; the male line died out in 1735.

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

Published in 1572, it runs to ten cantos in ottava rima and opens with a line that mimics the Aeneid.

How many cantos does the Portuguese national epic contain?

Its 1,102 stanzas add up to 8,816 lines of decasyllabic verse rhyming ABABABCC.

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?

The trumpeter's anti-colonial album also carried a song titled 'Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)'.

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

There is also a da Gama church in Kochi, a crater on the Moon, a Lisbon bridge and a famous Brazilian football club bearing his name.

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

Stone cannonballs bore what look like the initials of Vicente Sodré, da Gama's uncle and the ship's commander.

Which military order did da Gama join around 1480, following his father, before switching to the Order of Christ in 1507?

Its master was the future John II, and the family's fortunes rose with his; the dispute over his home town later drove da Gama out.

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

John II wanted retaliation for French raids on Portuguese shipping, and da Gama carried it out quickly.

Which two spices were the main prizes first obtained by the Portuguese from the East?

Portugal held a commercial monopoly on the Cape route for decades before other European powers could challenge it.

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

Its merchants worked through Levantine and Egyptian ports and the Red Sea to reach the Indian markets.

What event in 1869 made the Cape route da Gama pioneered largely obsolete?

Ships bound for Asia no longer needed to round Africa's southern tip.

The anonymous diarist of the first voyage described which Somali city, seen from the sea in January 1499, as having houses four or five storeys high?

It was then under the sway of the Ajuran Empire; the fleet did not stop.

Who was the Malindi pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide da Gama's fleet to India?

The fleet reached Kappadu near Kozhikode on 20 May 1498, a crossing that took just weeks compared with the brutal return trip.