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Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 to a wealthy Portuguese family in Sines, Portugal....

Abraham Lincoln began his life in a log cabin in Kentucky, the son of poor pioneers.

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Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 to a wealthy Portuguese family in Sines, Portugal.

Vasco da Gama, discoverer and surveyor of the globe: Life and work in a short biography!

Known for his discovery of the sea route to India, Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to establish a link between Europe and Asia.

Vasco da Gama’s Early Life and First Voyage to India

Born circa 1460, Vasco da Gama was the son of a minor nobleman who commanded the fortress at Sines, located on the coast of the Alentejo province in southwestern Portugal.

Little else is known about his early life, but in 1492 King John II sent da Gama to the port city of Setubal (south of Lisbon) and to the Algarve region to seize French ships in retaliation for French attacks on Portuguese shipping interests.

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By the time Vasco da Gama returned from his first voyage to India in 1499, he had spent more than two years away from home, including 300 days at sea, and had traveled some 24,000 miles. Only 54 of his original crew of 170 men returned with him; the majority (including da Gama's brother Paolo) had died of illnesses such as scurvy.

In 1497, John’s successor, King Manuel I (crowned in 1495), chose da Gama to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of a maritime route from Western Europe to the East.