fl. 1420s

Portuguese Navigator

In 1418 Portuguese navigator João Gonçalves Zarco sighted one of the Madeira Islands off the coast of Morocco. Within two years, he had claimed the Madeiras for Portugal, whose possession they remain. Zarco's "discovery"—the Madeiras had actually been known to mariners before, then forgotten—was the first notable achievement credited to the school of explorers founded by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460).

Little is known about Zarco's life aside from his adventure in the Madeiras, though it appears he was Jewish. This in itself is interesting, because while anti-Semitism was strong in all of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, it was rampant in the Christianized lands of the Iberian peninsula. Yet the Zarco family, which apparently came from the Portuguese city of Tomar, managed to flourish under Catholic rule...