User:Mcapdevila/Discoveries


 * 1336 — Possible first expedition to the Canary Islands with additional expeditions in 1340 and 1341, though this is disputed.
 * 1412 — Prince Henry, the Navigator, orders the first expeditions to the African Coast and Canary Islands.
 * 1419 — João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira discovered Porto Santo island, in the Madeira group.
 * 1420 — The same sailors and Bartolomeu Perestrelo discovered the island of Madeira, which at once began to be colonized.
 * 1422 — Cape Nao, the limit of Moorish navigation is passed as the African Coast is mapped.
 * 1427 — Diogo de Silves discovered the Azores, which was colonized in 1431 by Gonçalo Velho Cabral.
 * 1434 — Gil Eanes sailed round Cape Bojador, thus destroying the legends of the ‘Dark Sea’.
 * 1434 — the 32 point compass-card replaces the 12 points used until then.
 * 1435 — Gil Eanes and Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia discovered Garnet Bay (Angra dos Ruivos) and the latter reached the Gold River (Rio de Ouro).
 * 1441 — Nuno Tristão reached Cape White.
 * 1443 — Nuno Tristão penetrated the Arguim Gulf. Prince Pedro granted Henry the Navigator the monopoly of navigation, war and trade in the lands south of Cape Bojador.
 * 1444 — Dinis Dias reached Cape Green (Cabo Verde).
 * 1445 — Álvaro Fernandes sailed beyond Cabo Verde and reached Cabo dos Mastros (Cape Red)
 * 1446 — Álvaro Fernandes reached the northern Part of Portuguese Guinea
 * 1452 — Diogo de Teive discovers the Islands of Flores and Corvo.
 * 1458 — Alvise Cadamosto discovers the first Cape Verde Islands.
 * 1460 — Death of Prince Henry, the Navigator. His systematic mapping of the Atlantic reached 8° N on the African Coast and 40° W in the Atlantic (Sargasso Sea) in his lifetime.
 * 1461 — Diogo Gomes and António Noli discovered more of the Cape Verde Islands.
 * 1461 — Diogo Afonso discovered the western islands of the Cape Verde group.
 * 1471 — João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar crossed the Equator. The southern hemisphere was discovered and the sailors began to be guided by a new constellation, the Southern Cross. The discovery of the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe is also attributed to these same sailors.
 * 1479 — Treaty of Alcáçovas establishes Portuguese control of the Azores, Guinea, ElMina, Madeira and Cape Verde Islands and Castilian control of the Canary Islands.
 * 1482 — Diogo Cão reached the estuary of the Zaire (Congo) and placed a landmark there. Explored 150 km upriver to the Yellala Falls.
 * 1484 — Diogo Cão reached Walvis Bay, south of Namibia.
 * 1487 — Afonso de Paiva and Pero da Covilhã traveled overland from Lisbon in search of the Kingdom of Prester John. (Ethiopia)
 * 1488 — Bartolomeu Dias, crowning 50 years of effort and methodical expeditions, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean. They had found the "Flat Mountain" of Ptolemy's Geography.
 * 1489/92 — South Atlantic Voyages to map the winds
 * 1490 — Columbus leaves for Spain after his father-in-law's death.
 * 1492 — First exploration of the Indian Ocean.
 * 1494 — The Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain divided the world into two parts, Spain claiming all non-Christian lands west of a north–south line 370 leagues west of the Azores, Portugal claiming all non-Christian lands east of that line.
 * 1495 — Voyage of João Fernandes, the Farmer, and Pedro Barcelos to Greenland. During their voyage they discovered the land to which they gave the name of Labrador (lavrador, farmer)
 * 1494 — First boats fitted with cannon doors and topsails.
 * 1498 — Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut.
 * 1498 — Duarte Pacheco Pereira explores the South Atlantic and the South American Coast North of the Amazon River.
 * 1500 — Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil on his way to India.
 * 1500 — Gaspar Corte-Real made his first voyage to Newfoundland, formerly known as Terras Corte-Real.
 * 1500 — Diogo Dias discovered an island they named after St Lawrence after the saint on whose feast day they had first sighted the island later known as Madagascar
 * 1502 — Returning from India, Vasco da Gama discovers the Amirante Islands (Seychelles).
 * 1502 — Miguel Corte-Real set out for New England in search of his brother, Gaspar. João da Nova discovered Saint Helena. Fernão de Noronha discovered the island which still bears his name.
 * 1503 — On his return from the East, Estêvão da Gama discovered Ascension Island.
 * 1505 — Gonçalo Álvares in the fleet of the first viceroy sailed south in the Atlantic to were "water and even wine froze" discovering an island named after him, modern Gough Island
 * 1505 — Lourenço de Almeida made the first Portuguese voyage to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and established a settlement there.
 * 1506 — Tristão da Cunha discovered the island that bears his name. Portuguese sailors become the first Europeans to reach Madagascar.
 * 1509 — The Bay of Bengal crossed by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. On the crossing he also reached Malacca.
 * 1511 — Duarte Fernandes is the first European to visit the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), sent by Afonso de Albuquerque after the conquest of Malaca.
 * 1512 — António de Abreu discovered Timor island and reached Banda Islands, Ambon Island and Seram. Francisco Serrão reached the Moluccas.
 * 1512 — Pedro Mascarenhas discovered the island of Diego Garcia, he also encountered the Mauritius, although he may not have been the first to do so; expeditions by Diogo Dias and Afonso de Albuquerque in 1507 may have encountered the islands. In 1528 Diogo Rodrigues named the islands of Réunion, Mauritius, and Rodrigues the Mascarene Islands, after Mascarenhas.
 * 1512 — João de Lisboa and Estevão Frois reached the La Plata estuary or even perhaps the Gulf of San Matias in 42°S in modern Argentina between 1511 and 1514 (1512) according to the manuscript Newen Zeytung auss Pressilandt in the Fugger archives of the time. Christopher de Haro, the financier of the expedition, bears witness to the trip to La Plata (Rio da Prata) and the news of the "White King" to the interior and west, the Inca emperor – and the axe of silver obtained from the natives and offered to the king Manuel I.
 * 1513 — The first trading ship to touch the coasts of China, under Jorge Álvares and Rafael Perestrello later in the same year.
 * 1517 — Fernão Pires de Andrade and Tomé Pires were chosen by Manuel I of Portugal to sail to China to formally open relations between the Portuguese Empire and the Ming Dynasty during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor.
 * 1525 — Aleixo Garcia explored the Rio de la Plata in service to Spain, as a member of the expedition of Juan Díaz de Solís, and later – from Santa Catarina, Brazil – leading an expedition of some Europeans and 2,000 Guaraní Indians, explored Paraguay and Bolivia. Aleixo Garcia was the first European to cross the Chaco and even managed to penetrate the outer defenses of the Inca Empire on the hills of the Andes (near Sucre), in present-day Bolivia. He was the first European to do so, accomplishing this eight years before Francisco Pizarro.
 * 1526 — Discovery of New Guinea by Jorge de Meneses
 * 1528 — Diogo Rodrigues explores the Mascarene islands, that he names after his countryman Pedro Mascarenhas, he explored and named the islands of Réunion, Mauritius, and Rodrigues
 * 1529 — Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas.
 * 1536 — Pedro A. Campos discovers Barbados, and finds it uninhabitable.
 * 1542 — The coast of California explored by João Rodrigues Cabrilho.
 * 1543 — António Mota, Francisco Zeimoto, and possibly Fernão Mendes Pinto became the first Europeans to reach Japan.
 * 1557 — Macau given to Portugal by the Emperor of China as a reward for services rendered against the pirates who infested the China Sea.