Bartolomeu Dias (pronounced [baɾtuluˈmeu ˈdiɐʃ]; Anglicized: Bartholomew Diaz) (c. 1450 – May 29, 1500), a Nobleman of the Royal Household, was a Portuguese explorer who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European known to have done so.

In 1481 Dias accompanied Diogo de Azambuja on an expedition to the Gold Coast. Dias was a cavalier of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses and sailing-master of the man-of-war São Cristóvão (Saint Christopher). King John II of Portugal had appointed him on October 10, 1486 as the head of an expedition that was to endeavor to sail around the southern end of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route leading to India. Another important purpose of the expedition was to try to find the country of which recent reports had arrived through João Afonso de Aveiro and with which the Portuguese wished to enter into friendly relations. Dias was searching for the lands of Prester John, too, who was known as Christian priest and African Prince, though there is no evidence he ever existed. He was also sent to challenge the Muslims, who were in control of trading in Asia.

Continuing east, he sailed as far as the Great Fish River. Once it had become clear that India could be reached by sailing north up the coast, he turned back. It was only on the return voyage that he discovered the Cape of Good Hope in May 1488. Dias returned to Lisbon in December 1488 after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days. He had explored a total of about 2,030 km of unknown African coast.

He originally named the Cape of Good Hope the "Cape of Storms" (Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed by King John II of Portugal as the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo da Boa Esperança) because of the opening of a route to the east. The discovery of the passage around Africa was significant because for the first time Europeans could trade directly with India and the other parts of Asia, bypassing the overland route through of the Middle East, with its expensive middle men. The official report of the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope has been lost.

It appears that the Portuguese took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration after Dias' return. In that hiatus, it is likely that they got valuable information from a secret agent, Pêro da Covilhã, who had been sent overland to India and provided valuable information useful to their ocean navigators.¹

In early 2008 Namdeb discovered an early 16th century wreck off the coast of Namibia. It was originally speculated that this might be the wreck of Dias' ship,² but the gold coins were identified as "Português" which were minted after 1525,³ thus excluding the possibility of it being Dias' ship.

See also

• Pedro Álvares Cabral
• List of explorers

References

• This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia

Persondata
NAME	Dias, Bartolomeu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Portuguese explorer
DATE OF BIRTH	1450
PLACE OF BIRTH	Portugal
DATE OF DEATH	May 29, 1500
PLACE OF DEATH	Cape of Good Hope

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 6 January 2009, at 22:30.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by PediaView.com. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with PediaView.com.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Bartolomeu Dias".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://pediaview.com/openpedia/Bartolomeu_Dias

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.