Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa and proved that the Indian Ocean could be reached by sea. Almost nothing is known of his early life beyond that he was born around 1450, probably into a family with a seafaring tradition, and held a post at the royal warehouse and commanded a caravel on the Guinea run. João II sent him out in August 1487 with two caravels and a supply ship to continue the exploration of the African coast that had been pushed steadily southward for decades. He worked down past the point Diogo Cão had reached, left the store ship behind, and in January 1488 was driven far out to sea by a storm that lasted about a fortnight. Sailing east afterwards and finding no land, he turned north and made landfall at Mossel Bay — which meant he had passed the continent's southern end without seeing it. He continued east to the Great Fish River before his crews, exhausted and short of supplies, insisted on turning back. He sighted the cape on the return leg and, by tradition, named it the Cape of Storms; João II renamed it the Cape of Good Hope for what it promised. He returned in December 1488 after sixteen months. He was not given the command of the expedition that followed. He supervised the construction of Gama's ships in 1497 and accompanied that fleet as far as the Cape Verde islands. He sailed with Cabral in 1500, and in May of that year his ship was lost with all hands in a storm off the cape he had found.
- Lived: 1451 CE – 1500 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: navigator, explorer
