Which year did vasco da gama discover callicut?
There seems to be some confusion in the answers over Calcutta (now Kolkota) and Calicut. Vasco da Gama never got to Calcutta in the Bay of Bengal. His fleet of four ships arrived in Calicut on 20 May 1498, on the coast of what is now Kerala. It is now known locally by its Keralan name of Kozhikode, but Calicut still in most other parts of India. He got as far as Goa and that’s where the first Portugese fortified settlement was founded and a cathedral built. But that was as far as Vasco got. Later Portugese travellers pushed as far as Bombay (okay, Mumbai) and Diu in 1509. By the way, it’s probably better to say “arrive at” instead of “discover”. Calicut wasn’t lost and was a thriving trading port for many communities around the Indian Ocean, in Africa as well as Asia. It just wasn’t known to Europeans.
