Henry the Navigator and Portugal's Route to India

Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460), son of King John I, is traditionally regarded as the driving force behind Portugal's maritime expansion. He took part in the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 and is credited with founding a center of nautical and cartographic study at Sagres, in the Algarve, although modern historiography has substantially qualified the notion of a formal "school" there. As governor of the Order of Christ, heir to the Templars in Portugal, he used its financial resources to fund expeditions down the West African coast, and under his patronage the archipelagos of Madeira (from 1420) and the Azores (from 1427) were explored and colonized.