Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The violence and hostage taking employed by da Gama and those who followed also assigned a brutal reputation to the Portuguese among India's indigenous kingdoms that would set the pattern for western colonialism in the Age of Exploration. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India opened the way for an age of global imperialism and enabled the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire along the way from Africa to Asia. This is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient.
1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira ( c.
