Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism and for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. Traveling the ocean route allowed
Time in Portugal Cavaco Silva government, by Decree-Law 124/92, mainland Portugal officially changed its time zone from WET () to CET ().<ref name="Decree-Law 124/92"> Decree-Law 124/92, 2 July 1992 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2013.</ref> Differently from the 1966 move to CET, this time DST was to be observed, as CEST (), from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in September. The measure, approved without the consultation of Lisbon Observatory, had the intention of promoting energy savings, in order that “Portugal follow, in work schedules, the countries with which it maintains more frequent contacts” (DL 124/92) and so promoting economic