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
Portuguese India Armadas (1497–99) to the end of 1563. It is conserved at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City (ms. 525). Another codex of the same nature is the "Memória das Armadas que de Portugal passaram à Índia" ("Memory of the Armadas that from Portugal passed to India") or "Livro das Armadas", held by the Academia das Ciências in Lisbon. It covers the period from 1497 to 1567 (although missing the armada of 1517). The first Portuguese chronicler to attempt a systematic chronology of the India Armadas seems to have been Diogo do Couto, in his appendix to João de Barros's