Mossel Bay is a harbour town of about 170,000 people on the Garden Route of South Africa. It is an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province. Mossel Bay lies 400 kilometres eas
Mossel Bay
Bartolomeu Dias was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In February 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward
Mossel Bay
…on which ship's crews were expected to survive in those days. Although best known as the place where the first Europeans landed on South African soil (Bartolomeu Dias and his crew arrived on 3 February 1488), Mossel Bay's human history can – as local archaeological deposits have revealed – be traced back more than…
Statue of Dias at the High Commission of South Africa in London
Dias erecting a padrão at the Cape of Good Hope in 1488
An illustration of the two caravels used by Dias, São Cristóvão and São Pantaleão, to cross the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.
Dias perished in May 1500 when his ship was lost in a storm near the Cape of Good Hope (c. 1568 illustration).