Genus Vascoa
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For Vasco da Gama (1460 or 1469–1524), Portuguese explorer who pioneered the first sailing route from Europe to India between 1498 and 1499. While this trip was commercially successful, more than half his men died, mainly of scurvy. He also failed to secure a commercial treaty with the King of Calicut. Subsequently war broke out between Portugal and Calicut. In 1502, Da Gama led a fleet of 15 ships and 800 men to India, during which he inflicted barbarous acts of cruelty upon competing traders and local inhabitants. (For instance, he looted a ship with more than 400 Muslim pilgrims, including 50 women, locked them in the ship, and burnt them to death.) In 1524, he returned to Portuguese India as governor and viceroy, but died shortly after from malaria.