The Portuguese, based at Goa and Malacca, had now established a lucrative maritime empire in the Indian Ocean meant to monopolise the spice trade.

It can be questioned due to the Portuguese Reconquista that had ended in 1249, and both the Castillian and Portuguese kingdoms that may have begun profiting from maritime expansion along Africa before the Jews and Moors were expelled.

* May 20 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut ( now Kozhikode ), India, becoming the first European to get there by sailing around Africa, thus discovering the maritime route to India.

* The Ming Dynasty government of China issues a decree banning all foreign trade and closes down all seaports along the coast ; these Hai jin laws came during the Wokou wars with Japanese pirates, while the Portuguese began regular trade missions to China in 1449, and the ban on maritime trade was fully lifted in 1567.

* Although trade existed between the two beforehand, in this year the Portuguese begins to send regular seasonal maritime trade missions to Ming Dynasty China at Sao João Island ( also known as Shangchuan Island ) near Macau.

They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort.

A large percentage of the white population is of Portuguese descent, and a great number of " Native Islanders " ( born on the island ) within the community are of mixed ethnicity such as Portuguese, Native American ( Wampanoag Indian ), and African American families who have been there for generations, primarily tied to maritime ventures of fishing, whaling, and the fitting out of whaleships.

Direct maritime trade between Europe and China started in the 16th century, after the Portuguese established the settlement of Goa, India in December 1510, and thereafter that of Macau in southern China in 1557.

Macau was later offered to John III as a reward for the Portuguese assistance against maritime piracy in the period between 1557 and 1564.

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.

The first Brazilian vexillological symbols were private maritime flags used by Portuguese merchant ships that sailed to Brazil.

Despite representing the entire Portuguese empire, the armillary sphere began to be used more extensively in Brazil – the largest and most developed colony at the time – not only in maritime flags, but also on coins and other media.

It put an end to the War of the Castilian Succession, which ended with a victory of the Catholic Monarchs on land < ref name =" Bailey W. Diffie ">< sub >< big >↓</ big ></ sub > Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius “ In a war in which the Castilians were victorious on land and the Portuguese at sea, …” in Foundations of the Portuguese empire 1415-1580, volume I, University of Minnesota Press, 1985, p. 152 .</ ref > and a Portuguese victory on the sea .< ref name =" Historian Malyn Newitt ">< sub >< big >↓</ big ></ sub > Historian Malyn Newitt: “ All things considered, it is not surprising that the Portuguese emerged victorious from this first maritime colonial war.

Afonso de Albuquerque, who commissioned the first direct European maritime ventures to China from Portuguese Malacca.

In the 15th century, during the period of Portuguese maritime explorations, expeditions like the conquest of Ceuta ( 1415 ) were planned in the royal palace of Santarém.

By the 15th century, Lagos became the centre of Portuguese maritime exploration, with ships ordered south to trace the shoreline of Africa in order to find routes to India.

The small Portuguese element in the vocabulary of Mauritian creole derives rather from the Portuguese element in European maritime jargons ( such as Sabir and Lingua Franca ) or from enslaved Africans or Asians who came from areas where Portuguese was used as a trade language.

He understood that Portugal could wrest commercial supremacy from the Arabs only by force, and therefore devised a plan to establish forts at strategic sites which would dominate the trade routes and also protect Portuguese interests on land.

France, in rivalry with Britain for supremacy, began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India, following Spanish and Portuguese successes during the Age of Discovery.

The fortress of Santa Catarina, near João Pessoa, was built by the Portuguese to protect the city from the invading Dutch, who soon became the greatest threat to Portuguese supremacy in Portugal's Colonial Brazil.

In 1616 the fortified settlement of Feliz Lusitânia, later called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão Pará ( Our Lady of Bethlehem of the Great Para ) and Santa Maria de Belém ( St. Mary of Bethlehem ), was established, consolidating Portuguese supremacy over the French in what is now northern Brazil.

The Portuguese Colonial Act, passed on 13 June 1933 recognized the supremacy of the Portuguese over native people, and even if the natives could pursue all studies including university, the de facto situation was of clear disadvantage due to deep cultural and social differences between most of the traditional indigenous communities or tribes and the ethnic Portuguese who used to live in the littoral of Angola.

When the domination of the Portuguese missionaries became unbearable, a section of this community broke away from the western supremacy in 1653.

The legal system was based on Portuguese and customary law but was weak and fragmented.

Trade was mostly with the Portuguese colony of Brazil ; Brazilian ships were the most numerous in the ports of Luanda and Benguela.

By this time, Angola, a Portuguese colony, was in fact like a colony of Brazil, paradoxically another Portuguese colony.

By 1850, Luanda was one of the greatest and most developed Portuguese cities in the vast Portuguese Empire outside Mainland Portugal, full of trading companies, exporting ( together with Benguela ) palm and peanut oil, wax, copal, timber, ivory, cotton, coffee, and cocoa, among many other products.

Amalaric ( Gothic: Amalareiks ), or in Spanish and Portuguese, Amalarico, ( 502 – 531 ) was king of the Visigoths from 526 until his assassination in 531.

Afonso de Albuquerque ( or archaically spelt as Aphonso d ' Albuquerque and also spelt as Alfonso, and Alphonso ; ; 1453December 16, 1515 ), 1st Duke of Goa, was a Portuguese fidalgo, or nobleman, an admiral whose military and administrative activities as second governor of Portuguese India conquered and established the Portuguese colonial empire in the Indian Ocean.

Lisbon was recovered by the Portuguese in 1147.

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.

His campaigns were successful and, on 25 July 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was unanimously proclaimed King of the Portuguese by his soldiers, establishing his equality in rank to the other realms of the Peninsula.

Afonso II (; English Alphonzo ), or Affonso ( Archaic Portuguese ), Alfonso or Alphonso ( Portuguese-Galician ) or Alphonsus ( Latin version ), nicknamed " the Fat " ( Portuguese o Gordo ), King of Portugal, was born in Coimbra on 23 April 1185 and died on 25 March 1223 in the same city.

Afonso, born in Lisbon, was the rightful heir to the Portuguese throne.

A peace treaty was signed in Seville in 1339 and, in the next year, Portuguese troops played an important role in the victory of the Battle of Rio Salado over the Marinid Moors in October 1340.

But perhaps his most important contribution was the importance he gave to the Portuguese navy.

Opposition rose and without any important ally among the Portuguese aristocracy other than Afonso, Count of Barcelos, the illegitimate half brother of King Edward and count of Barcelos, the queen's position was untenable.

The San Agustin was commissioned into the Portuguese Navy as the Santo Agostinho, and command of her was given to Phillip.

The construction of the Abbey at Batalha commenced in 1388 and was added to by various Portuguese Kings over these next two centuries.

A very successful Portuguese feature film was made in the early 20th century that dramatically captured the primitive and dangerous life of these fishermen.

After the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Portugal would reestablish its authority over the lost territories of the Portuguese Empire.

These immigrants immediately created a faction among the Portuguese court, aiming at privileges and power that, somehow, could compensate what they lost at home.

Portugal lost part of Guinea to French West Africa, including the center of earlier Portuguese commercial interest, the Casamance River region.

From the time beginning with the incorporation of the Portuguese Empire in 1580 ( lost in 1640 ) until the loss of its American colonies in the 19th century, Spain maintained the largest empire in the world even though it suffered fluctuating military and economic fortunes from the 1640s.

Although these continental European powers controlled various coastal regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they eventually lost all their territories in India to the British islanders, with the exception of the French outposts of Pondicherry and Chandernagore, the Dutch port of Travancore, and the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu.

A few months later, however, Bahadur was dead, killed when a botched plan to kidnap the Portuguese viceroy ended in a fire-fight which the Sultan lost.

By this time the Portuguese Empire had already lost its interest on the spice trade sea route because of the decreasing profitability of that business.

Many Portuguese, also considering having lost all took their own lives.

The Portuguese ruled from 1517 to 1538, when they lost to the Ottomans.

The Portuguese armada managed to re-take most of the lost cities and began punishing their leaders, but they refrained from attacking Mogadishu.

In 1630, a Dutch fleet of 70 ships had taken the rich sugar-exporting areas of Pernambuco ( Brazil ) from the Portuguese but had lost everything by 1654.

Meanwhile, Portugal had lost its King and the Spanish took control of the Portuguese monarchy.

In the next two centuries, Portugal gradually lost much of its wealth and status as the Dutch, English and French took an increasing share of the spice and slave trades ( the economic basis of its empire ), by surrounding or conquering the widely-scattered Portuguese trading posts and territories, leaving it with ever fewer resources to defend its overseas interests.

After the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Portugal would reestablish its authority over some lost territories of the Portuguese Empire.

Later, Philip IV tried to make Portugal a Spanish province, and Portuguese nobles lost power.

The Portuguese 2nd Division fought against Germany's superior numbers and though the unit was almost completely lost, the Portuguese fought on.

Meanwhile, the Dutch also lost formerly occupied Baia de Todos os Santos, Salvador de Bahia, 12 ° 48 ′ S 38 ° 38 ′ W in Brazil, 1 May 1625, under the heavy attacks of the Spanish – Portuguese Fleet, commanded by the Captain General of the Spanish Navy, since 1617, Admiral Fadrique II de Toledo Osorio y Mendoza ( Naples, Italy, May 1580 – 11 December 1634 ), 1st Marquis of Villanueva de Valdueza, and, since 17 January 1624, Knight of the Order of Santiago.

Early Leticia history mentions a Portuguese explorer who, after becoming lost on the Amazon, died of starvation at the present site of Leticia with the rest of his crew.

Spain ( known officially as " the Kingdom of Spain ") was assembled in the 15th century from various component kingdoms, of which Portugal seceded in the Portuguese Restoration War while other component kingdoms lost their secession wars.

In the 17th century, the Portuguese lost almost all of their valuable Indian Ocean trade to the Dutch and the English who, taking advantage from the Spanish ruling over Portugal ( 1580 – 1640 ), occupied by force almost all Portuguese dominations in the area.

John had lost his wife, Infanta Eleanor of Aragon the year before, and was happy to wed the Portuguese heiress.