Bartolomeu dias voyage from lisbon

Bartolomeu Dias was a Portuguese explorer who captained the first ship to sail around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern end of Africa. In 1481, Bartolomeu Dias emerged from historical obscurity when he accompanied Diogo de Azambuja to explore Africa’s Gold Coast. Dias was a nobleman and supporter of the royal court, a superintendent of the Royal Warehouses, and was also a sailing master of a warship – the man of war Saint Christopher.

On October 10th, 1486, The Portuguese King John II assigned Dias as the head of an expedition to find a trade route to Asia by going south around the African continent, hoping to find an alternate trade route to avoid the time and extra cost of going through the middle east. This expedition also had a spiritual aspect; it was to try and find the land of the fabled Christian priest and king Prester John, which was supposed to be a Christian Kingdom of Abyssinia, lost amid Muslim lands, and thought to be in India and later in Ethiopia.

In April 1487, Bartolomeu Dias set sail from the Tagus River, below Lisbon, Portugal with a fleet of three ships, with the supply ship being captained by Bartolomeu’s brother, Pero. Six native Africans were brought along to help aid in translation with indigenous peoples along the way.

Dias sailed to the mouth of the Congo River, which was discovered only the year before by Diogo Cao and Martin Behaim. Then he followed the African coast to Walvis Bay where a violent storm caused him to lose sight of the coast for 13 days. This storm sent him well south of Walvis Bay and when it eased up, he set sail towards the continent and on February 3rd, 1488 he landed in what is today called Mossel Bay on the coast of South Africa. It was in Mossel Bay that they stocked up on fresh water and traded for livestock with the local inhabitants. These inhabitants were the KhoiKhoi, also known as Hottentots – named by the Dutch explorers, which means to stammer or stutter, because of their unusual clicking sounds i

Late 15th-century Portuguese maritime explorer

Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450 – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lies in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries effectively established the sea route between Europe and Asia.

Early life

Bartolomeu Dias was born around 1450 in the Faro District of Portugal. His family had a maritime background, and one of his ancestors, Dinis Dias, explored the African coast in the 1440s and discovered the Cap-Vert peninsula in today's Senegal in 1445. Tracing his biography is complicated by the existence of several contemporary Portuguese seafarers with the same name.

In 1481, Dias accompanied an expedition, led by Diogo de Azambuja, to construct a fortress and trading post called São Jorge da Mina in the Gulf of Guinea.

Indirect evidence also points to his possible participation in Diogo Cão's first expedition (1482–1484) down the African coast to the Congo River.

Voyage around Africa

In 1486 he seems to have been a cavalier of the king's household and superintendent of the royal warehouses; on 10 October in that year, he received an annuity of 6000 reis from King John II of Portugal for "services to come"; and sometime after this (probably about July or August 1487, rather than July 1486, the traditional date) he left Lisbon with three ships to carry on the work of African exploration so significantly advanced by Diogo Cão. Dias was also charged with searching for Prester John, a legendary figure believed to be the powerful Christian ruler of a realm somewhere beyond Europe, possibly in the African interior. Dias was provided with two caravels of about 50 tons each (São Cristóvão and São Pantaleão) and a square-rigged supply ship captained b

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I did an interview with the Curious Worldview Podcast. The host, Ryan Faulkner-Hogg runs a website – https://atlasgeographica.com – that is dedicated to things such as journalism and finding out about the world. His podcast is just a a part of all the stuff that he does. Ryan was great, and we talked a long time about a bunch of different stuff. We, of course, talked about explorers, but also a lot about the creative side of making the podcast, which was fun. So, please check it out if you want to here me ramble on about a bunch of different subjects.

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(1450-1500)

Who Was Bartolomeu Dias?

Born in 1450, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was sent by Portuguese King John II to explore the coast of Africa and find a way to the Indian Ocean. Dias departed circa August 1487, rounding the southernmost tip of Africa in January 1488. The Portuguese (possibly Dias himself) named this point of land the Cape of Good Hope. Dias was lost at sea during another expedition around the Cape in 1500.

Early Life and African Expedition

Almost nothing is known about the life of Bartolomeu de Novaes Dias before 1487, except that he was at the court of João II, king 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 João appointed him to head an expedition in search of a sea route to India.

João was entranced by the legend of Prester John, a mysterious and probably apocryphal 12th-century leader of a nation of Christians somewhere in Africa. João sent out a pair of explorers, Afonso de Paiva and Pêro da Covilhã, to search overland for the Christian kingdom in Ethiopia. João 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 African expedition.

In August 1487, Dias' trio of ships departed from the port of Lisbon, Portugal. Dias followed the route of 15th-century Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão, who had followed the coast of Africa as far as present-day Cape Cross, Namibia. Dias' cargo included the standard "padrões," the limestone markers used to stake Portuguese claims on the continent. Padrões were planted at the shoreline and served as guideposts to previous Portuguese explorations of the coast.

Dias' expedition party included six Africans who had been brought to Portugal by earlier explorers. Dias drop