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
Time in Portugal March to last Sunday in October in the whole country.<ref name="Regional Legislative Decree 6/96/M"> Regional Legislative Decree 6/96/M (Madeira), 25 June 1996 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 26 May 2013.</ref><ref name="Regional Legislative Decree 16/96/A"> Regional Legislative Decree 16/96/A (Azores), 1 August 1996 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 26 May 2013.</ref> In 1996 Portugal adopted ISO 8601 via EN 28601 as NP EN 28601:1996. The Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon publishes the official time via the Network Time Protocol (NTP), e.g. via "ntp02.oal.ul.pt" and "ntp04.oal.ul.pt". The IANA time zone database contains 3 zones for Portugal. Columns marked with * are from the file zone.tab from the