Overview

The Portuguese Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450-1500) lies at a crossroad in the history of exploration. For more than 50 years before he set sail to what would become the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal had explored to its own profit along most of the western coast of Africa. When Dias reached the Cape in 1487, he triggered a completely new series of explorations in the Indian Ocean. His achievement should thus be seen as the end of one epoch in the history of European exploration and colonization of the world and the beginning of another.

Background

By going beyond the southern tip of Africa, Bartolomeu Dias fulfilled a hope of many centuries—circumnavigating that great continent. His exploit, however, was not something that...