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Prince Henry started the first school for oceanic navigation and in this school, people were trained in nagivation, map-making, and science, in order to sail down the west of Africa.
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Columbus landed in the Bahamas and later explored much of the Caribbean, including the isles of Juana and Espanola, as well as the coasts of Central and South America.
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Bartolomeu Dias was a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European known to have done so.
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In 1492, the Spanish monarchs completed the Reconquista with the incorporation of Granada to the Kingdom of Castile.
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The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a meridian.
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Manuel placed Vasco da Gama, who already had some reputation as a warrior and navigator, in charge of four vessels built especially for the expedition. They set sail July 8, 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope four months later, and reached Calicut May 20, 1498.
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On March 16, 1521, Magellan's expedition landed on Homonhon island in the Philippines. He was the first European to reach the islands.
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Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods.
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In 1603, the first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia was established in Banten, West Java and in 1611, another was established at Jayakarta.