Early Modern
Vasco da Gama's Voyage to India (1497–1499): Sea Route Opened
Da Gama reached Calicut in May 1498 and returned to Lisbon in 1499, opening a direct sea route between Europe and India at the cost of more than half his men.
Region
Asia
Early Modern
Battle of Diu (1509): How Portugal Won the Indian Ocean
Decisive Portuguese victory that ended Mamluk naval intervention and opened the way to Portuguese dominance of Indian Ocean sea lanes.
Early Modern
Portuguese Conquest of Goa (1510): Afonso de Albuquerque
Portugal captured Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate; it became the capital of the Portuguese Estado da Índia and remained Portuguese until 1961.
Early Modern
Capture of Malacca (1511): Portugal Seizes the Spice Strait
Portugal took Malacca and held it until 1641; the sultan's court fled and later founded the Johor Sultanate.
Early Modern
Battle of Mactan (1521): Lapulapu and the Death of Magellan
Victory for Lapulapu's forces; Magellan and several of his men were killed and the Spanish expedition left Cebu soon afterwards.
Early Modern
Babur: Timurid Prince and Founder of the Mughal Dynasty
Babur conquered the Delhi Sultanate and founded the Mughal dynasty, which ruled much of South Asia until the 18th century.
Early Modern
First Battle of Panipat (1526): Babur Founds Mughal Rule
Decisive victory for Babur; Ibrahim Lodi was killed, the Lodi sultanate fell and Babur took Delhi and Agra.
Early Modern
Treaty of Zaragoza (1529): Settling the Moluccas Dispute
Spain gave up its claim to the Moluccas (Spice Islands) to Portugal for 350,000 ducats, and a demarcation line was drawn in the Pacific east of the islands.
Early Modern
Sher Shah Suri: The Afghan Ruler Who Drove Out Humayun
Sher Shah expelled Humayun from India and ruled a centralised Sur Empire until his death in 1545; the Mughals returned only in 1555.
Early Modern
Jiajing Wokou Raids (1540s-1567): Piracy on the Ming Coast
Ming armies suppressed the main pirate bands by the mid-1560s, and in 1567 the court relaxed the sea ban by opening Yuegang to licensed private trade.
Early Modern
Tanegashima (1543): How the First Guns Arrived in Japan
Japanese smiths copied the Portuguese matchlock within about a year, and firearms spread across Japan to become a decisive weapon of the Sengoku wars.
Early Modern
Francis Xavier in Japan (1549): The First Christian Mission
Xavier founded small Christian communities in Kyushu and western Honshu and opened a Jesuit mission that grew to well over 100,000 converts by the end of the century.