* 1498 – Vasco da Gama decides to depart Calicut and return to Portugal.

The city's status was further diminished after Vasco da Gama discovered a sea route around the Cape of Good Hope, thereby allowing spice traders to avoid Cairo.

* António da Costa de Albuquerque de Sousa Lara, 2nd Count de Guedes, Vasco de Bettencourt de Faria Machado e Sampaio and Marcelo Olavo Correia de Azevedo, Ascendências Reais de Sua Alteza Real a Senhora Dona Isabel de Herédia Duquesa de Bragança, I, pelos Costados Herédia, Bettencourt e Meneses da Ilha da Madeira " ( Universitária Editora, 1999 )

* 1497 – Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope, the point where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

* 1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.

In exchange, the Portuguese received gold ( transported from mines of the Akan deposits ), pepper ( a trade which lasted until Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498 ) and ivory.

* 1497: Vasco da Gama departs to India starting direct trade with Asia.

In 1498, Vasco da Gama successfully discovered a new sea route from Europe to India, which paved the way for direct Indo-European commerce.

" In 1498, Vasco da Gama was the first sailor to travel from Portugal to India.

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.

Later, starting in 1497, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama made the first open voyage from Europe to India.

* 1499 – Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returns to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.

* 1497 – Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.

The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached Mombasa in 1498.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore the region of current-day Kenya, Vasco da Gama having visited Mombasa in 1498.

When Vasco da Gama, exploring for Portugal, reached the coast of Mozambique in 1498, Arab trading settlements had existed along the coast and outlying islands for several centuries, and political control of the coast was in the hands of a string of local sultans.

* 1498 – Vasco da Gama reaches the port of Calicut, India.

* 1498 – Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the island of Mozambique Island.

* 1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode ( previously known as Calicut ), India.

Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean in the early 16th century following Vasco da Gama's voyages of exploration saw them battle the Ottomans up the coast of the Persian Gulf.

The control of trade routes and the spice-producing regions were the main reasons that Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sailed to India in 1499.

In 1498, by reaching India, Vasco da Gama proved that the access to the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic was possible.

The complete conquest of Ethiopia was averted by the timely arrival of a Portuguese expedition led by Cristóvão da Gama, son of the famed navigator Vasco da Gama.

Vasco da Gama, who passed by Mogadishu in the 15th century, noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its centre and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.

In the 1497 expedition of Vasco de Gama, the curative effects of citrus fruit were known.

Jonathan Lamb wrote: " In 1499, Vasco da Gama lost 116 of his crew of 170 ; In 1520, Magellan lost 208 out of 230 ;... all mainly to scurvy.

Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, Vasco da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio.

Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission.

Vasco da Gama having visited Mombasa in 1498, was then successful in reaching India and this permitted the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the Spice trade routes that utilized the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean.

The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, having found his way around the Cape and obtained pilots from the coast of Zanzibar in 1497 CE, pushed his way across the Indian Ocean to the shores of Malabar and Calicut, attacked the fleets that carried freight and Muslim pilgrims from India to the Red Sea, and struck terror into the potentates all around.

Offered them to form a part of Basque radical rock, something that would have opened all the doors and forgotten old moves but they refused and said: The rock has no country, not even the Basque, they then became cursed, they were censured in some stations and newspapers, and people became increasingly more reluctant to hire them to play in Euskadi, his exact words: We play more in the rest of Spain than in Euskadi, but they were never anti-Basques, they preferred to play on their land instead of having to travel to far away concerts, as Iosu said: we never play " A La Mierda El País Vasco " in Spain, there we prefers to play " Maldito País España ".

The conservative Spanish president José María Aznar admitted having autorized direct contacts with ETA and he publicly called ETA " Movimiento Vasco de Liberación ", leaving aside the mainly used " terrorist association ".

The Fundação Jorge Álvares ( Jorge Álvares Foundation ), founded by Vasco Joaquim Rocha Vieira prior to the handover of Macau, got its name from him also having reached there.

He was president of Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama between 2001 and 2008 having previously worked in Vasco's administration.

* 1497 – 1499: Vasco da Gama's first voyage from Europe to India and back.

On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon.

The route followed in Vasco da Gama's first voyage ( 1497 – 1499 )

In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India.

For example, Vasco da Gama named the South African region of Natal after passing there on Christmas Day 1497, and the village that became Natal, Brazil, was founded on Christmas Day 1599.

It was particularly valuable to the Portuguese as a recognition of their new-found, particularly when, in 1497 – 1499, Vasco da Gama completed the voyage to India.

Just nine years later in 1497 on the orders of Manuel I of Portugal, four vessels under the command of navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, continuing to the eastern coast of Africa to Malindi to sail across the Indian Ocean to Calicut in south India-the capital of the local Zamorin rulers. The wealth of the Indies was now open for the Europeans to explore ; the Portuguese Empire was the earliest European seaborne empire to grow from the spice trade.

The first European visitor to the vicinity was Vasco da Gama on December 28, 1497.

* Vasco Gil Moniz ( died 1497 ), Portuguese nobleman, son of Gil Aires Moniz

* São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama in the 1497 Portuguese expedition from Europe to India by circumnavigating Africa.

He accompanied his brother Vasco da Gama on his first sea voyage to India in 1497.

The Hermitage of Restelo (), as it was known, was already a hermitage in disrepair, when Vasco da Gama and his men spent the night in prayer before departing on their expedition to the Orient in 1497.

It is assumed that Vasco da Gama replenished his fleet's water supply at the Umgeni mouth on Christmas Day, 1497, and so named the region Natal, Portuguese for Christmas.

Already in 1497, Vasco da Gama took Zacuto's tables and the astrolabe with him on the maiden trip to India.

The first Europeans to have visited the area were Portuguese explorers Bartholomew Dias, who landed on St Croix Island in Algoa Bay in 1488, and Vasco da Gama who noted the nearby Bird Island in 1497.

He is then recorded sailing with Diogo Cão on his first voyage in 1482, and as the pilot of the famous Bérrio caravel on Vasco da Gama ’ s first expedition in 1497 to sail directly from Europe to India.

In 1497 on the first Portuguese India Armadas expedition to India, Diogo Dias served as escrivão ( clerk ) aboard Vasco da Gama's flagship São Gabriel.