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 re-introduced, it could never be observed as CEST (), and the only solution was to re-adopt WET as standard time. So, in 1976, Portugal adopted WET () as its standard time. DST started to be observed every year as WEST () usually from early April to later September. From 1981 on, DST started to be observed from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in September. In 1986, time in Portugal began to be calculated in accordance with UTC, instead of GMT.<ref name="Decree-Law 44-B/86"> Decree-Law 44-B/86, 7 March 1986 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 19 May 2013.</ref> In 1992, during