Bartolomeu Dias

Bartolomeu Dias(or Bartholomew Dias, 1450 - May 29, 1500) was a Portuguese explorer who was the first European to sail past the Cape of Good Hope now Cape Town.

 Voyage to Africa 
In 1487, King John II of Portugal asked Dias to find a new route for the spice trade and to find a legendary Christian king named Prester John in the east. In 1488, Dias and his sailors sailed along the western coast of Africa. They got caught in a storm and landed at a cape in Southern Africa and so could not sail beyond that point. They named it "Cape of Storms" and later returned to Portugal. The king of Portugal considered it as a victory gained by the Portuguese adventurers and named it as "Cape of Good Hope".  Because Prester John did not really exist, they did not find his country, but they found the route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean that leads to Asia, which turned out to be valuable.Oakley, Robert (2003). "Dias, Bartolomeu". In Gerli, E. Michael (ed.). Medieval Iberia : an encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93918-6.Crowley, Roger (2015). Conquerors : How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-8129-9400-1. OCLC 904967943, p. 17-19.Ravenstein, Ernst Georg (2010). Bartolomeu Dias. William Brooks Greenlee, Pero Vaz de Caminha. England: Viartis. ISBN 978-1-906421-03-8. OCLC 501399584

 Death and legacy 
Commanding a ship in Pedro Álvares Cabral's later expedition to Brazil and India, Dias died at sea in 1500 during a storm. 

There was a statue made for him later in Cape Town, South Africa.

References

Category:1450 births
Category:1500 deaths
Category:Portuguese explorers