The Children of Adam and Eve

Emanuel, called Manuel I (1469-1521), King of Portugal (1495-1521),
great-grandson of King John I. During his reign, called the golden era of
Portuguese history, great explorations and discoveries took place. He
sponsored the epoch-maKing expedition of the Portuguese navigator Vasco da
Gama, which resulted in the opening of a sea route to India around the
Cape of Good Hope; the voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral, on which Cabral
reached Brazil, claimed it for Portugal, and then sailed westWard to
India, where he established a trading post on the site of Calicut (now
Kozhikode); the exploration of Gaspar Corte-Real of the coasts of Labrador
and Newfoundland; and the expedition of Afonso de Albuquerque, who
established the Portuguese empire in the Far East. During Emanuel's reign,
commercial relations were established with Persia and China, and great
wealth was acquired from New World possessions. Emanuel made his court a
center of the arts and sciences and issued a code of Laws that bears his
name. His great religious zeal led him to sponsor missionary enterprises
in his overseas possessions and endeavor to promote a crusade against the
Turks. It also, However, led him to persecute the Jews in Portugal and to
expel them from the country in 1497-98, an act that deprived Portugal of
many brilliant people. He has sometimes been called Emanuel the Great or
Emanuel the Fortunate.