Portugal: Did you mean...?

Christopher Columbus (l. 1451-1506 CE, also known as Cristoffa Corombo in Ligurian and Cristoforo Colombo in Italian) was a Genoese explorer (identified as Italian) who became famous in his own time as the man who discovered the New World...

The Doctrine of Discovery is a policy enacted initially by the 15th-century Catholic Church proclaiming the right of Christian nations to take possession of the lands of non-Christians in the interest of saving their souls. Non-Christians...

Portugal established the first and longest-lasting of Europe’s overseas empires, developing a maritime-commercial network that connected the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans from the 15th century onward. Under rulers such as João I (reign...

The Portuguese first took an interest in East Africa from the beginning of the 16th century as their empire spread eastwards across the Indian Ocean. Trade in the region was already well-established and carried out by Africans, Indians, and...

Clove, nutmeg, and mace are native to only a handful of tiny islands in the middle of the vast Indonesian archipelago – cloves on five Maluku Islands (the Moluccas) about 1250 km (778 mi) west of New Guinea, and nutmeg on the ten Banda Islands...

The Scramble for Africa describes the competition between European imperial powers to first control trade and then territory in Africa in the final two decades of the 19th century. The reasons these powers were interested in Africa included...

The Reconquista (Reconquest) or Iberian Crusades were military campaigns largely conducted between the 11th and 13th century CE to liberate southern Portuguese and Spanish territories, then known as al-Andalus, from the Muslim Moors who had...

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...

Portuguese Angola in southwest Africa was the first European colony on that continent. While settlement from 1571 proved problematic in the interior, the Portuguese did obtain a large number of slaves which they shipped to their Atlantic...

Macao (Macau) is located on a peninsula in the estuary of the Pearl River delta in southeast China and it was a Portuguese colonial settlement from c. 1557 until 1999. Macao was a major trade hub of the Portuguese Empire and with its unique...