Paradoxically, few figures in world history are at once so well known and so obscure as Vasco da Gama. On the other hand, this voyage would have taken place even without Gama´s command. His voyage was certainly a turning point and the development of world history would have been quite different without it.
It is not too much to maintain that without Gama´s voyage, the long-lived Portuguese Empire in Asia would not have been born. Os Lusíadas has become a defining monument of Portuguese national identity. This epic poem was written and published only in 1578, some 70 years after the voyage, and just as Portugal entered the dark age of the Habsburg monarchy. His voyage has become a part of the Portuguese national consciousness mainly because of the fame of Os Lusíadas by Camões. So what was so special about him and the voyage? Yet Gama is known for one event only, that of his command of the pioneering sea voyage between Europe and India in 1497 -1499. In the game of nominating as many famous Portuguese as you can, it is certain that Gama will be one of the few remembered, along with Henry the Navigator and perhaps the Marquês de Pombal, Salazar, Magellan, Eusébio and Christiano Ronaldo.
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