1. Vasco Da Gama <br />Vasco da Gama was the son of Estevao da Gama <br />During his childhood, Vasco da Gama was educated as a nobleman and he served in the court of King Joao II. He was brought up in a maritime environment and trained in fishing, sailing and swimming during his childhood. At the age of fifteen he was a sailor. In Evora, he studied navigation and astronomy. Perhaps, he learnt astronomy under the guidance of the astronomer Abraham Zacuto. In 1492, King John II of Portugal sent Vasco da Gama to the port of Setubal to capture the French ships engaged in peacetime predations against the Portuguese. Vasco da Gama effectively accomplished this feat. From the early years of the fifteenth century, the nautical school of Henry the Navigator was exploring the African coastline. Their plan was to reach India via a sea-route. There were ongoing plans since Vasco da Gama was a child of an age ten.<br /> Vasco Da Gama wanted to find a way to Asia <br />The expedition set sail from Lisbon on July 8, 1497, following the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape verde Islands. Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the equatar and seeking the south Atlantic and westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on November 4, 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than 6,000 miles of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by the time. Then they found Malinda. Soon they set out north and reached Culicut<br />Vasco da Gama set sail for home on August 29, 1498. Eager to leave he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns, which was still blowing onshore. Crossing the Indian Ocean to India, sailing with the monsoon wind, had taken Gama's ships only 23 days. The return trip across the ocean, sailing against the wind, took 132 days, and Gama arrived in Malindi on January 7, 1499. During this trip, approximately half of the crew died, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Two of Gama's ships made it back to Portugal, arriving in July and August of 1499. Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal in September 1499 and was richly rewarded as the man who had brought to fruition a plan that had taken eighty years to fulfill. He was given the title quot;
Admiral of the Indian Seas. <br />In the Voyage of Vasco Da Gama He crossed the Atlantic Ocean and he went traveled through the Indian Ocean and to Calicut and the to Goa then he traveled back. <br />http://www.buzzle.com/articles/vasco-da-gama-childhood.html <br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/vasco_da_gama_01.shtml <br />http://www.asij.ac.jp/elementary/gr5web/c5r/explorer_reports/gwen.htm <br />http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/d/dagama.shtml <br />http://www.answers.com/topic/vasco-da-gama <br />http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2gamavasco.htm <br />
