Indian Ocean: Did you mean...?

Vasco da Gama (c. 1469-1524) was a Portuguese navigator who, in 1497-9, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa and arrived at Calicut (now Kozhikode) on the south-west coast of India. This was the first direct voyage from...

Goa, located on the west coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1961. The small coastal area was conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque (c. 1453-1515) and became an important trade hub for the Eastern spice trade. Goa was the capital...

This relief depicts an ancient Indian ship likely to have been used by Indian adventurers sailing to Java, Indonesia. Location: Borobudur temple, Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia

Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE) built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to the Indus River. This was the famous Achaemenid Empire of Persia. An inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, the tomb of his able successor Darius I (521-486...

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an eyewitness account of ancient travel to Africa and India via the Red Sea written by an unknown Greek-speaking Egyptian author in the 1st century CE. In this detailed account, the conditions of the...

This Ajanta mural depicts an ancient Indian ship with high stem and stern and three oblong sails attached to three masts. Steering-oars can also be seen. Location: Cave No. 2, Ajanta Caves, Aurangabad District, Maharashtra state, India

The Estado da India (1505-1961) was the name the Portuguese gave to that part of their empire which stretched from India to East Asia. However, in its widest sense, the name includes all Portuguese colonies east of the Cape of Good Hope and...

James McLaughlin (l. 1842-1923), US Indian Inspector of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, best known for ordering the arrest of the Sioux Chief Sitting Bull in December 1890 and requesting the troops that participated in the Wounded Knee Massacre...

The Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947, led by the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002), successfully crossed 8,000 km (5,000 miles) of the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands on a balsa-wood raft. The aim of the expedition was to demonstrate...

A map illustrating the course and major events of the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763), a crucial North American conflict within the broader Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France. It started in 1754, pitching France, French...