The historical figure Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who remains famous for the first circumnavigation of the earth, proving that the earth is round. However, the voyage was dogged by misfortune, storms and mutinies, and Magellan himself did not actually complete the trip.
In 1453, the death knell was sounded for the aging Byzantine Empire when its capital, Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Turks under Mehmet II. One of the consequences of the rise of the Ottoman Empire was that European overland trade to Asia was now limited. Moreover, the exotic goods of the East were monopolized by Arab merchants, and were sold at extremely high prices to the Europeans. This contributed to the European Age of Discovery, as one of the goals of maritime exploration was the finding of an alternative route to the East.
In 1488, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Diaz succeeded in reaching the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. 10 years later, his compatriot Vasco da Gama followed Diaz’s route, and arrived in India.
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