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.

* 1894 – Américo Tomás, Portuguese admiral and politician, 14th President of Portugal ( d. 1987 )

* 1987 – Américo Tomás, Portuguese admiral and politician, 14th President of Portugal ( b. 1894 )

* May 20 ( Feast of the Ascension ) – Ascension Island is first definitely sighted, by Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque.

* probable – Afonso de Albuquerque, Portuguese admiral ( d. 1515 )

Further north, a fleet led by Abd Allah b. Ishaq b. Jami is sailing to attack Lisbon but is repelled by the Portuguese admiral D. Fuas Roupinho near the Cape Espichel.

* The Portuguese admiral D. Fuas Roupinho wins a second victory in two years against the Almohad fleet.

* July – Spanish admiral Santa Cruz defeats the Portuguese, French, and English off Terceira.

* After a series of defeats, the Almohad navy, under the admiral Ahmad al-Siqilli, crushes the Portuguese fleet and reassert their control over the Atlantic Ocean.

* While trying to enter by surprise in the harbor of Ceuta to sink Muslim ships, the Portuguese admiral D. Fuas Roupinho is spotted and killed.

After sailing for a while as schipper ( skipper ) of a merchant vessel named de Vlissinge, he was contacted again by the Zeeland Admiralty to become captain of the Haze, a merchant ship turned man-of-war carrying 26 guns in a fleet under admiral Gijsels fighting the Spanish, teaming up with the Portuguese during their rebellion.

The uninhabited islands of Tristan da Cunha were first sighted in May 1506 during a voyage to India by the Portuguese admiral Tristão da Cunha, who named the main island after himself.

In the fighting for Bahrain, most of the combat was carried out by Portuguese troops, while the Ormusi admiral, Reis Xarafo, looked on.

On arriving at the port of St. John's, Gilbert found himself temporarily blockaded by the fishing fleet under the organization of the port admiral ( an Englishman ) on account of piracy committed against a Portuguese vessel in 1582 by one of Gilbert's commanders.

Denis effectively founded the Portuguese navy under command of a Genoese admiral, Manuel Pessanha ( Portuguese form of the Italian " Pezagno "

The Ottoman admiral Selman Reis defended Jeddah against a Portuguese attack in 1517.

In February, 1605 Steven van der Hagen, admiral of the Dutch East India Company ( VOC ), conquered the Portuguese fortress of Victoria at Amboyna, thereby taking over the Portuguese trading interests at Victoria.

In March 1508, commanded by Mamluk admiral Mirocem ( Amir Husain Al-Kurdi ) or Admiral ( Husain Al-Kurdi ), the Egyptian Mamluk fleets arrived at Chaul in India where they surprised a Portuguese fleet commanded by Lourenço de Almeida, son of the Portuguese viceroy.

General admiral was a Danish, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish naval rank.

* 1542 – Turkish-Portuguese War ( 1538-1557 ) – Battle of Wofla: the Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed.

The Portuguese navigator Pedro de Mascarenhas may have discovered the island during his voyage of 1512 – 1513, but there is little corroborative evidence for this ; cartographic analysis points to 1532 or later.

The Portuguese missionary Pedro de Alcacova would later write in 1554:

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.

From his Vila do Infante in 15th Century Portuguese, Estate or Town of the Prince on the Sagres peninsula located at the south-westernmost point of Iberia and with sea access to both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Henry sponsored voyages down the coast of Africa, sailing as far as Guinea, that were primarily exploration expeditions, later on bringing back to the nearby town of Lagos, from whence they set out, numerous African slaves and goods.

The Archbishop of Braga and the count of Arraiolos refused to approve the terms in the reunion of the Portuguese Cortes, thus condemning Ferdinand to remain in miserable captivity until his death six years later.

In 1497, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and became the first European to sail to India and later the Far East.

From there, they sailed to Kozhikode ( Calicut ), where Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama would land two centuries later.

Five years later, in 1680, he was brought to London to succeed Joshua da Silva as Hakham of London where he served for 15 years as the hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London.

Portuguese explorers established contacts with people of the land later known as " Liberia " as early as 1461.

The sailors later established posts at Goa in 1510, and conquered Malacca in 1511, driving the Sultan to the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula from where he kept making raids on the Portuguese.

Thus, fifteen years later, a local leader named Muhammad Thakurufaanu Al-Azam and his two brothers organized a popular revolt and drove the Portuguese out of Maldives.

Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, overseas province and later a member state of Portugal.

" Mozambique " first described a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay, then the fort and town on that island, São Sebastião de Moçambique, and later extended to the whole of the Portuguese colonies on the east coast of Africa.

Pope John XXI, born Pedro Julião ( Latin, Petrus Iulianus ( c. 1215 – 20 May 1277 ), a Portuguese often identified with Pedro Hispano ( Latin, Petrus Hispanus ; English, Peter of Spain ), was Pope from 1276 until his death about eight months later.

According to Burton ( 2007 ) Martin authorized a crusade against Africa in 1418 and this coupled with a later bull ( 1441 ) sanctioned the Portuguese trade in African slaves.

The capital of this Kongolese kingdom, Mbanza Kongo, later baptized as São Salvador by the Portuguese, is a town in northern Angola near the border with the DRC.

A wholly landlocked area, Rhodesia bordered South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland ( later Botswana ) to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest and Mozambique ( a Portuguese territory until 1975 ) to the east.

Portuguese trading posts were installed in Tanguegueth in Cay, a town they renamed Fresco Rio ( the future Rufisque ) because of the freshness of its sources in the Baol Sali ( later the seaside town of Saly ) which takes the name of Portudal, or to Joal in the Kingdom of Sine.

If the Africans were not much interested in acquiring slaves, the Portuguese — as well as the Dutch, French, and English who arrived later — certainly were.

Olivenza / Olivença had been under continuous Portuguese sovereignty since 1297 when it was occupied by the Spanish in 1801 and formally ceded by Portugal later that year by the Treaty of Badajoz.

Political scientists often define competition in Europe during the Modern Era as a balance of power struggle, which also induced various European states to pursue colonial empires, beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese, and later including the British, French, Dutch, and German.

The post – World War I accords and the League of Nations charter designated the area a British Mandate, except for a small area in the northwest, which was ceded to Belgium and later became Rwanda and Burundi, as well as a small area in the southeast ( Kionga Triangle ), incorporated to Portuguese East Africa ( later Mozambique ).

Spanish and Portuguese sailors and explorers brought vanilla into Africa and Asia later that century.