History of Western civilization Genovese born mariner, Christopher Columbus set out under the auspices of the Crown of Castile (Spain) to seek an oversea route to the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean. Rather than Asia, Columbus landed in the Bahamas, in the Caribbean. Spanish colonization followed and Europe established Western Civilization in the Americas. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama led the first sailing expedition directly from Europe to India in 1497-1499, by the Atlantic and Indian oceans, opening up the possibility of trade with the East other than via perilous overland routes like the Silk Road. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer working
Time in Portugal Empire: although almost all continental Portugal is located west of the 7.5°W meridian (i.e. in the theoretical zone of time zone), for mainland Portugal it was adopted as its time zone. By the same law, time zone was adopted for the Azores and Cape Verde, for Madeira and Portuguese Guinea, for São Tomé and Príncipe and São João Baptista de Ajudá, for Angola, for Mozambique, for Portuguese India and for Macau and Portuguese Timor. These time zones were adopted on 1 January 1912. Daylight saving time ("Hora de Verão", in Portuguese) was observed for the first time in 1916, during