Portuguese discoveries a ground-breaking voyage commanded by Vasco da Gama. The squadron of Vasco da Gama left Portugal in 1497, rounded the Cape and continued along the coast of East Africa, where a local pilot was brought on board who guided them across the Indian Ocean, reaching Calicut in western India in May 1498. The second voyage to India was dispatched in 1500 under Pedro Álvares Cabral. While following the same south-westerly route as Gama across the Atlantic Ocean, Cabral made landfall on the Brazilian coast. This was probably an accidental discovery, but it has been speculated that the Portuguese secretly knew
Portugal at the Paralympics European countries- has never taken part in the Winter Games. Portuguese athletes have won a total of 92 Paralympic medals, of which 25 gold, 30 silver and 37 bronze. As of 2010, Portugal ranks thirty-sixth on the all-time Paralympic Games medal table. The country's best performance came in 2000, when it won 15 medals (of which 6 gold) and ranked 26th. Portugal at the Paralympics Portugal made its Paralympic Games début at the 1972 Summer Paralympics (two years before the Carnation Revolution), where it was represented solely by a men's team in wheelchair basketball. They were eliminated at the preliminary