who led the first European expedition (1488) to round the Cape of Good Hope, thus opening the sea route to Asia via the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. On a voyage surveying the West African coast he had sailed to latitude 26° S, off Namibia, when his ships were caught in a storm; they were swept further south for 13 days and during this time rounded the Cape of Good Hope (which Diaz named the Cape of Storms). His landfall (1488) was near the southernmost tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas: coasting eastwards, he found that the land turned north. He perished just off the Cape of Good Hope in 1500, on a later voyage during which Brazil had been discovered.