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| c. 1450 |
| | | The caravel, a sailing ship developed in the Mediterranean and used down the west coast of Africa, is adapted by the Portuguese for Atlantic use | |
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| 1456 |
| | | A Portuguese navigator discovers some of the Cape Verde islands, tropical and at that time uninhabited | |
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| 1462 |
| | | Portuguese settlers arrive to found Cidade Velha, on the Cape Verde island of Santiago | |
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| 1488 |
| | | Bartolomeu Dias, sailing for the king of Portugal, becomes the first European navigator to round the Cape of Good Hope | |
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| 1493 |
| | | Pope Alexander VI draws a line through the Atlantic, dividing new discoveries between Spain (west) and Portugal (east) | |
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| 1494 |
| | | In negotiations about the New World at Tordesillas, the king of Portugal insists on a new demarcation line which later brings him Brazil | |
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| 1501 |
| | | Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci sets sail from Lisbon to explore to the south of the New World | |
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| 1541 |
| | | Francis Xavier, companion of Ignatius Loyola and the first missionary of the Counter-Reformation, sets sail from Lisbon | |
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| 1549 |
| | | Brazil becomes a Portuguese royal province, under the control of a governor general | |
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| 1572 |
| | | Luis de Camoëns publishes The Lusiads, the poem which becomes Portugal's national epic | |
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