Editing Vasco da Gama (section)

=== Journey to the Cape ===
[[File:Cross daGama2.jpg|thumb|Monument to the Cross of Vasco da Gama at the [[Cape of Good Hope]], South Africa]]
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via [[Tenerife]] and the [[Cape Verde]] Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day [[Sierra Leone]], da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the equator and seeking the South Atlantic [[westerlies]] that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487.<ref>[[Gago Coutinho]], C.V. (1951–52) ''A Nautica dos Descobrimentos: os descobrimentos maritimos visitos por um navegador'', Lisbon: Agencia Geral do Ultramar; pp. 319–363; Axelson, E. (1988) "The Dias Voyage, 1487–1488: toponymy and padrões", ''Revista da Universidade de Coimbra'', Vol. 34, pp. 29–55 [https://books.google.com/books?id=hcMp9hZ_8yAC&pg=PA29 offprint]; Waters, D.W. (1988) "Reflections Upon Some Navigational and Hydrographic Problems of the XVth Century Related to the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias", ''Revista da Universidade de Coimbra'', Vol. 34, pp. 275–347. [https://books.google.com/books?id=UKK-b3If-78C&dq=rota%20entre%20santiago&pg=PA333 offprint].</ref> This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than {{convert|6000|mi|km|sigfig=1|order=flip}} of open ocean, by far the longest journey without landfall made by that time.<ref name="Foundations"/><ref>{{cite book |last= Fernandez-Armesto |first= Felipe |title= Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration |year= 2006 |publisher= [[W. W. Norton & Company]] |isbn= 978-0-393-06259-5 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/pathfindersgloba00fern/page/177 177–178] |url= https://archive.org/details/pathfindersgloba00fern/page/177 }}</ref>

By 16 December, the fleet had passed the [[Great Fish River]] ([[Eastern Cape]], South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name [[KwaZulu-Natal Province|Natal]], which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.