Cape Verde: Did you mean...?

The Portuguese colonization of the Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) Islands began from 1462. Initially envisaged as a base to give mariners direct access to West African trade, the Central Atlantic islands soon became a major hub of the Atlantic slave...

A c. 1646 watercolour painting showing the town of Ribeira Grande on Santiago, one of the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago, then a Portuguese colony. Painting by Caspar Schmalkalden, image by Arquipelagos. (Forschungsbibliothek Gotha)

A 1598 map of the Portuguese colony of Cape Verde, an archipelago in the Central Atlantic off the coast of West Africa. Drawn by Barent Langenes. (National Library of France, Paris)

Ribeira Principal stream on the island of Santiago, one of the Cape Verde Islands.

The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas (Tordesilhas) was an agreement between the monarchs of Spain and Portugal to divide the world between them into two spheres of influence. The imaginary dividing line ran down the centre of the Atlantic Ocean...

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...

The golden Mold Cape was discovered in the town of Mold in Flintshire, Wales in 1833 CE. The cape dates from 1900-1600 BCE, and is the only Bronze Age gold cape known to exist. The meaning behind the intricate patterns and designs remains...

The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies like Brazil...

Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is today the Philippines...

A bronze statue of Poseidon (or Zeus) from Cape Artemisium (460 BCE), National Archaeological Museum, Athens.