Who was the first European navigator to sail round the southern tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope?
- A.Vasco da Gama
- B.Bartolomeu Dias
- C.Pedro Alvares Cabral
- D.Christopher Columbus
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Bartolomeu Dias. The Portuguese captain Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa in 1488. He called it the Cape of Storms, and the king of Portugal renamed it the Cape of Good Hope because the way to India now lay open. Option A, Vasco da Gama, used that opening ten years later and reached Calicut in 1498, so he was the first to sail from Europe to India, not the first round the Cape. Option C, Pedro Alvares Cabral, sailed for India in 1500, was carried west and reached the coast of Brazil, which Portugal then claimed. Option D, Christopher Columbus, sailed west across the Atlantic for Spain in 1492 and never went round Africa. The Dias and da Gama pair is one of the most frequent confusions in this chapter.
Read the full article: Renaissance, Reformation and Geographical Discoveries
Practice Questions
View allThe fall of Constantinople, which sent Greek scholars westwards into Italy and helped begin the Renaissance, took place in which year?
- A.1453
- B.1492
- C.1498
- D.1517
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Constantinople, the capital of the eastern Roman or Byzantine empire, was captured by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed the Second in 1453.
Read the full explanation →Who among the following is called the father of humanism?
- A.Dante Alighieri
- B.Petrarch
- C.Boccaccio
- D.Niccolo Machiavelli
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Francesco Petrarch, an Italian poet and scholar of the fourteenth century, collected and studied classical Latin manuscripts and placed human life, reason and the individual at the centre of learning, which is why he is remembered as the father of humanism.
Read the full explanation →The book The Prince, which treats politics as a craft separate from morality, was written by whom?
- A.Thomas More
- B.Erasmus
- C.Niccolo Machiavelli
- D.Martin Luther
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Machiavelli, a Florentine diplomat, wrote the Prince as advice to a ruler on how to win and keep power, judging actions by their results rather than by religious morality, and the word Machiavellian comes from this book.
Read the full explanation →Printing with movable metal type was introduced in Europe by
- A.Johannes Gutenberg
- B.William Caxton
- C.Leonardo da Vinci
- D.Nicolaus Copernicus
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Gutenberg of Mainz in Germany built the first European printing press with movable metal type about the middle of the fifteenth century and printed the Bible that carries his name.
Read the full explanation →The Ninety Five Theses, which began the Reformation, were published in 1517 against which practice of the Church?
- A.The celibacy of priests
- B.The sale of indulgences
- C.The use of Latin in prayer
- D.The worship of images
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An indulgence was a pardon for sin sold for money, and the campaign to sell indulgences in Germany to pay for building work at Rome was the immediate provocation for Martin Luther, who nailed or posted his Ninety Five Theses at Wittenberg on 31 October 1517 arguing that no payment…
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