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Feb 1, 1418
Prince Henry starts a navigation school
About 1418, Prince Henry started the first school for oceanic navigation along with an astronomical observatory at Sagres, Portugal. In this school, people were trained in nagivation, map-making, and science, in order to sail down the west of Africa. -
Feb 8, 1475
Spain begins settlements in the Philippines
The land of the Iberian peninsula was commonly called Hispania since Roman times and during the Visigothic Kingdom. The process of the Reconquista produced the emergence of four Christian realms: Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal. -
Feb 7, 1487
Bartolomeu Dias rounds the southern tip of Africa
Bartolomeu Dias was a Knight of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing-master of the man-of-war. -
Feb 7, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Caribbean
In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to John II of Portugal, the King of Portugal. He proposed the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out west into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return. Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea" (for they called the Atlantic the Ocean Sea), appointed governor of any and all lands he 'discovered', and be given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. -
Jul 2, 1494
Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas
The Treaty of Tordesillas was intended to resolve the dispute that had been created following the return of Christopher Columbus. In 1481, the papal bull Æterni regis had granted all land south of the Canary Islands to Portugal. On 4 May 1493 the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI decreed in the bull Inter caetera that all lands west and south of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands should belong to Spain -
Feb 1, 1497
Vasco da Gama reaches the port of Calicut on the Indian Ocean
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than around the equator. -
Feb 8, 1504
Ferdinand Magellan leads a Spanish expedition to the Philippines
After the death of Queen Isabella, Ferdinand as Spain's sole monarch adopted a more aggressive policy than he had as Isabella's husband, enlarging Spain's sphere of influence in Italy and against France. Ferdinand's first investment of Spanish forces came in the War of the League of Cambrai against Venice, where the Spanish soldiers distinguished themselves on the field alongside their French allies at the Battle of Agnadello (1509). -
France sets up its own East India Company
This is the same as the first one we had to do? -
The Dutch establish a trading center on Java
(United East India Company") was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia.