Portuguese discoveries | Portuguese expeditions 1415 – 1542: arrival places and dates ; Portuguese spice trade routes in the Indian Ocean ( blue ); territories of the Portuguese empire under King John III of Portugal | King John III rule ( green )

Adamastor is a Greek-type mythological character invented by the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões in his epic poem Os Lusíadas ( first printed in 1572 ), as a symbol of the forces of nature Portuguese navigators had to overcome during their discoveries, and more specifically of the dangers Portuguese sailors faced when trying to round the Cape of Storms.

Portuguese discoveries and explorations: first arrival places and dates ; main Portuguese spice trade routes in the Indian Ocean ( blue ); territories of the Portuguese empire under King John III of Portugal | King John III rule ( 1521-1557 ) ( green ).

The ship that truly launched the first phase of the Portuguese discoveries along the African coast was the caravel, a development based on existing fishing boats.

Another vector of the discoveries were the voyages westward, during which the Portuguese discovered the Sargasso Sea and possibly sighted the shores of Nova Scotia well before 1492.

The Corpo Cronológico ( Chronological Corpus ), a collection of manuscripts on the Portuguese explorations and discoveries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, was inscribed on UNESCO ’ s Memory of the World Register in 2007 in recognition of its historical value " for acquiring knowledge of the political, diplomatic, military, economic and religious history of numerous countries at the time of the Portuguese Discoveries.

Category: Portuguese discoveries

Portuguese discoveries and explorations from 1415 to 1543: first arrival places and dates ; main Portuguese spice trade routes in the Indian Ocean ( blue ); territories of the Portuguese Empire under the rule of King John III of Portugal | King John III ( 1521 – 1557 ) ( green )

The origin of the word is indeed very ancient, belonging to a period before the world discoveries by the Portuguese.

Nunes, considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of his time, is best known for his contributions in the technical field of navigation, which was crucial to the Portuguese period of discoveries.

This version goes back to Meyer Kayserling's book Christopher Columbus and the participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries ( 1894 ).

The Corpo Cronológico ( Chronological Corpus ), a collection of manuscripts on the Portuguese explorations and discoveries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, was inscribed on UNESCO ’ s Memory of the World Register in 2007 in recognition of its historical value " for acquiring knowledge of the political, diplomatic, military, economic and religious history of numerous countries at the time of the Portuguese Discoveries.

These explorations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were soon followed by France, England and the Netherlands, who explored the Portuguese and Spanish trade routes into the Pacific Ocean, reaching Australia in 1606 and New Zealand in 1642.

Spanish and Portuguese explorations led to the first European sightings of the Americas and the sea passage along Cape of Good Hope to India, in the last decade of the century.

* Henry the Navigator Infante Henrique, Duke of Viseu ( 1394 – 1460 ); infante ( prince ) of the Portuguese House of Aviz and an important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire, being responsible for the beginning of the European worldwide explorations.

However the oldest signed Portuguese sea chart is a Portolan made by Pedro Reinel in 1485 representing the Western Europe and parts of Africa, reflecting the explorations made by Diogo Cão.

The trade of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic has its origins in the explorations of Portuguese mariners down the coast of West Africa in the 15th century.

The first explorations and conquests were made by the Spanish and the Portuguese, immediately following their own final reconquest of Iberia in 1492.

This was the main driving factor for the Portuguese explorations of the Indian Ocean, including the sea of China, resulting in the arrival in 1513 of the first European trading ship to the coasts of China, under Jorge Álvares and Rafael Perestrello, followed by the Fernão Pires de Andrade and Tomé Pires diplomatic and commercial mission of 1517, under the orders of Manuel I of Portugal, which opened formally relations between the Portuguese Empire and the Ming Dynasty during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor.

In the first years of John III's reign, explorations in the Far East continued and the Portuguese reached China and Japan ; however, these accomplishments were offset by pressure from a strengthening Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, especially in India, where attacks became more frequent.

Even before the Tordesilhas Treaty, such was the profit coming from John II's investments in the overseas explorations and expansion that the Portuguese currency had become the soundest in Europe.

The Portuguese explorations were his main priority in government, pushing south the known coast of Africa with the purpose of discovering the maritime route to India and breaking into the spice trade.

* 1808 – Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.

Afonso I ( 25 June 1109, Guimarães or Viseu – 6 December 1185, Coimbra ), more commonly known as Afonso Henriques (), nicknamed " the Conqueror " (), " the Founder " () or " the Great " () by the Portuguese, and El-Bortukali (" the Portuguese ") and Ibn-Arrik (" son of Henry ", " Henriques ") by the Moors whom he fought, was the first King of Portugal.

The first assembly of the estates-general convened at Lamego ( wherein he would have been given the crown from the Archbishop of Braga, to confirm his independence ) is a 17th century embellishment of Portuguese history.

He designed the first set of Portuguese written laws.

The Bassas da India was first recorded by Portuguese explorers in the early sixteenth century as the " Baixo da Judia " (" Jewess Shoals ").

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry ", became a catchphrase the world over ( the phrase was used again, first in Ang Lee's Hulk ( 2003 ), although in Spanish, and again in the 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk, with an altered version in Portuguese ).

The first written accounts of Banda are in Suma Oriental, a book written by the Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires who was based in Malacca from 1512 to 1515 but visited Banda several times.

On his first visit, he interviewed the Portuguese and the far more knowledgeable Malay sailors in Malacca.

This was the period when Spanish and Portuguese adventurers and missionaries first visited the country.

69. 4 % spoke English, 6. 9 % Spanish, 3. 2 % Chinese or Mandarin, 3. 0 % Portuguese, 2. 9 % French Creole, 2. 3 % French, 1. 5 % Korean, and 1. 0 % Italian as their first language.

Portuguese explorers first visited the archipelago in 1505.

Portuguese cartographer Diego Ribero was the author of the first known planisphere with a graduated Equator ( 1527 ).

These new lands were divided between the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire, first by the papal bull Inter caetera and then by the Treaty of Tordesillas and the Treaty of Zaragoza ( 1529 ).

Cão then coasted down along the present Angola ( Portuguese West Africa ), and erected a second pillar, probably marking the termination of this voyage, at Cape Santa Maria ( the Monte Negro of these first visitors ).

Portuguese explorers may have been the first Europeans to discover the island of Diego Garcia.

Gaspar da Cruz ( c. 1520 – 1570 ), who worked all over the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia, was probably the first Christian missionary to preach ( unsuccessfully ) in Cambodia.

When Portuguese explorers first came into contact with the Japanese ( see Nanban period ), they described Japanese conditions in analogy, likening the Emperor, with great symbolic authority but little political power, to the Pope, and the Shogun to secular European rulers, e. g. the Holy Roman Emperor.

Though definite proof is lacking, there is evidence that the islands were first discovered by an unrecorded Portuguese expedition before Magellan set sail.

The evidence is found in two early maps, one made by the Portuguese cartographer Pedro Reinel in about 1522, the very first map to show the Falklands, the other a French copy of a Portuguese map bought in Lisbon by André Thévet ( 1516-1590 ), a Franciscan friar and prolific writer on many subjects ; this copy is now in the manuscript of a large unpublished work by Thevet in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

These two maps of Portuguese origin suggest that it was Portuguese navigators who first saw and mapped the Falklands.

Europeans had already come to Japan: the Portuguese had already landed in 1543 on the island of Tanegashima, where they introduced the first firearms to Japan.

Their first attempt to reach the port of Massawa failed due to the actions of Lopo Soares de Albergaria, governor of Portuguese India, which got no closer than the Dahlak Archipelago and was aborted with the death of the Portuguese ambassador, old Duarte Galvão at Kamaran.