GamaVasco (da, circa 1460-1524) Discoverer of the European-Indian shipping route. Portuguese navigator, pioneer of sailing routes from Europe around the Cape of Good Hope to India. Also translated Da Gama. Born in Sines, Portugal, died in Cochin, India. In his youth, he participated in the war between Portugal and Spain, and later served in the Portuguese court. On July 8, 1497, he was dispatched by the King of Portugal and led a ship from Lisbon to search for a sea route to India. The ship passed through the Canary Islands, circled the Cape of Good Hope, passed through Mozambique and other places, and arrived in Calicut, southwest India on May 20, 1498. He left India in the autumn of the same year and returned to Lisbon on September 9, 1499. Gamma visited India twice in 1502-03 and again in 1524, the last time he was appointed governor-general of India. Gamma navigated India and promoted the development of Eurasian trade. Before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Europe's trade with the countries along the Indian Ocean and China was mainly through this route. The opening of this route was also the beginning of Portuguese and other European countries' colonization activities in Asia.

On May 20, 1498, Da Gama hired a local helmsman at Malindi and sailed to Carikat in southwestern India. (Carikat is also the old name of the port city "Kozhikode" in present-day western India). There were some violent conflicts between him and the local ruler SamoothriRaja (English: Zamorin) to negotiate trade routes from Arabia. In the end, Da Gama relented, negotiating on the condition of a mock right of way letter and refusing to leave the contents of his ship as collateral. He left several Portuguese sailors there as liaisons for future trade. In September 1499, da Gama returned to Portugal, where he was rewarded and became a wealthy merchant for breaking through the sea line expansion that Portugal had hoped for for 80 years, and was honored as "Admiral of the Indian Ocean". On February 12, 1502, he set out again with 20 warships to use Portuguese military power to consolidate this newly opened sea route. By then, Bertro Ophares Cabral had traveled to India in about 1500. He found that all of da Gama's Portuguese contacts there had been murdered, and his fleet had subsequently been attacked. ( Cabral's trip unexpectedly discovered Brazil) Da Gama led 20 warships and destroyed the wealthy Arab tribes near the port of Kilwa on the coast of East Africa and forced them to pay tribute and learn Portuguese. He also robbed Arab merchant ships, and finally arrived in Carikat, India. When his fleet had expanded to 29 ships, he quickly conquered the area and plundered a large amount of valuable commodities. Da Gama returned to Portugal with valuable Indian goods as a condition of peace, and bought many lands that formerly belonged to the royal family. In 1524, da Gama, already known in India as the "mediator of the supremacy of force", sent more warships to East Africa and West Indies in an attempt to replace the incompetent ruler, Eduardo de Menezes, and seize his Portuguese territory. However, da Gama died shortly after his arrival in Caricat, India. He was cremated and buried in the Church of St. Francis in Kochi, India, before being transported back to Portugal in 1539 and reburied in Vidiqueira.

Vasco da Gama compares with Zheng He:

Later historians have had considerable controversy about who first arrived on the east coast of Africa. Generally, Western history believes that da Gama was the one. However, the customs and customs of the east coast of Africa were recorded when Zheng He sailed to the West in China, which was more than 70 years earlier than da Gama. Moreover, the size of his fleet was many times larger than that of the other European navigators Columbus, Magellan, and da Gama. Historians believe that Zheng He did not force colonization and enslavement of the local population. Da Gama's voyages were colonial plunder and killing, which brought serious disasters to the colonial people. At present, there are da Gama's landing monument in Calicut (Guli), the museum in New Delhi, and the Indian Naval Museum in Cochin. You can see the photos and related information of Da Gama, but there is no trace of Zheng He's voyage to the West.