It wasn't Vasco da Gama who first rounded the Cape of Storms in 1497, later named Cape of Good Hope.
And neither was Bartolomeu Dias, nine years earlier, in 1488.
The first to round the Cape of Good Hope were not the Portuguese!
Then who was it? If we google it and in the books of History, most refer to have been Gama! But, if we look carefully, we see that in many cases Gama claims to be the first European, and the Portuguese the first Europeans, to establish or travel the sea route to India or Asia. And it is often said that Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to round the Cape of Storms, in southern Africa.
These language gems have a reason. It is that it was the Egyptians, with Phoenician crews, the first to round Africa, and therefore round the Cape of Storms.
And they did it about 1000 years before the Portuguese< /span>. More precisely around the year 610 BC right after the Pharaoh Necos II suspended the construction of the Suez Canal, which had started at that time; and who tells us is Herodotus the father of History (c.490-c.425 BC).
The original text translated from Greek reads like this:
Libya itself shows that it is surrounded by the sea, except on the side that borders Asia. Necos, king of Egypt, is the first one we know of to prove this. When he stopped digging the channel that was supposed to lead the waters of the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent the Phoenicians in ships, with orders to enter, on their return, through the pillars of Hercules, into the sea. return to Egypt in this way.
The Phoenicians, having therefore embarked on the Eritrean Sea, sailed into the South Sea. When autumn came, they landed where they were in Libya and sowed wheat. Then they waited for the harvest time, and after the harvest they went out to sea again. Having thus traveled for two years, in the third year they folded the pillars of Hercules and returned to Egypt. They reported, upon arrival, that, as they sailed around Libya, they had the sun on their right. This fact does not seem absolutely credible to me; but maybe it seems that way to someone else. This is how Libya was first known. (Stories, Book IV, 42-43)
Herodotus tells us that he does not believe that the Sun could have risen on the right side of the boats! Because at the time the Earth was not accepted as round. However, it is this same circumstance that allows us to prove that they sailed north with the sun rising on the right side, if they always sailed with land on the right side , and necessarily have doubled at Cape of Storms.
If it already causes us astonishment that the Portuguese in the 15th century, with those small and crude boats, which they called caravels, made such a journey, our astonishment is even greater if we think that Egyptian boats, even with Phoenician technology, were even cruder and mostly powered by oars.
Since the Egyptians are Africans, Vasco da Gama, Bartolomeu Dias and the Portuguese were therefore the first Europeans to circumnavigate Africa, inaugurating the sea route to India and an era of global imperialism that allowed the Portuguese establish a lasting colonial empire. The violence employed by Vasco da Gama and his followers also bestowed a brutal reputation on the Portuguese among the kingdoms of India, aiding their submission.
The use of the Cape Route allowed the Portuguese to avoid navigating the highly disputed Mediterranean and crossing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances traveled on the round trip made this Gama expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made. Since he wasn't the first, he deserves credit for having made the longest journey.
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