Answer: Dias accidentally reached the tip of Africa while this was da Gama’s purpose.
Reproduction of the Cross of Vasco da Gama at the Cape of Good Hope. In the Early Modern Era the first European to reach the cape was the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias on 12 March 1488 who named it the “Cape of Storms” ( Cabo das Tormentas ).
In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500 either by an accidental landfall or by the crown’s secret design Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil on the South American coast.
The arrival of Europeans. The first Europeans to discover the Cape were the Portuguese. Bartholomeu Dias arrived in 1488 after journeying south along the west coast of Africa. The next recorded European sighting of the Cape was by Vasco da Gama in 1497 while he was searching for a route that would lead directly from Europe to Asia.. Table Mountain was given its name in 1503 by António de …
The Age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration (sometimes also particularly regionally Age of Contact or Contact Period) is an informal and loosely defined term for the early modern period approximately from the beginning of the 15th century until the middle of the 17th century in European history in which sea-faring European nations explored regions across the globe. …