Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India of the "São Gabriel" and its sister ship, the "São Rafael" that were used by Vasco da Gama to sail past the Cape of Good Hope and continue to India. One of the sailors, Bartolomeu Dias passed the southernmost point of Africa known as the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. He declared it possible to travel to India by going around Africa. The Portuguese were then able to make an immense profit by using their own ships to retrieve the spices. This global expedition was launched on 8 July 1497. It concluded two years later with the entry of
Spanish and Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, are a distinctive sub-group of Iberian Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the immediate generations following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. Although the 1492 and 1497 expulsions of unconverted Jews from Spain and Portugal were separate events from the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions (which was established over a decade earlier in 1478), they were ultimately linked, as the Inquisition eventually also led to the fleeing out of