Bartholomew Diaz was a Portuguese navigator whose discovery in 1488 of the Cape of Good Hope showed Europeans there was a feasible route to India around the storm-driven southern tip of Africa. He also discovered for Europe the south-east trade winds and the westerlies to the west and south of South Africa, thus establishing the wind system for those who sailed after him. King João II of Portugal financed Diaz’s expedition. Diaz took part in Cabral's expedition that discovered Brazil, but Diaz’s ship sank during a storm. It is very unlikely that Diaz was, in fact, the first mariner to round the Cape. The great merchant traders of antiquity ¾ the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese and Indians — all made journeys down the west and east African coasts, and one expedition went right around the continent.

Nevertheless, the voyage of Diaz was fraught with consequences, for at the time the search for a passage to the Indies was a move in the great struggle between the Moslem world and Christendom. The epoch-making voyage of Diaz not only opened up the sea route to the Indies; it paved the way for contact between Europe, Africa, and the East, greatly extending the Portuguese sphere of influence.