The Siege of Moji was a siege in 1561 against the castle of Moji in Japan. The castle belonged to the Mōri clan, whose capital was the city of Yamaguchi. Forces under Ōtomo Sōrin attacked the castle in alliance with the Portuguese, who provided three ships between 500 and 600 tons, each with a crew of […]
The Nanban trade, Southern barbarian trade or the Nanban trade period, Southern barbarian trade period in the history of Japan extends from the arrival of the first Europeans – Portuguese explorers, missionaries and merchants – to Japan in 1543, to their near-total exclusion from the archipelago in 1614, under the promulgation of the “Sakoku” Seclusion Edicts. First […]
You’ve been eating and drinking them all your life without knowing the actual origins! We bet you never knew these Indian foods are not Indian at all but are a gift of foreign influences. 1. Samosa That delicious samosa you always munch on as a tea-time snack or when sudden hunger-pangs hit is not […]
The Portuguese established a colony in India at the beginning of the 16th century. Portuguese India was ruled first from Cochin, and then Goa. Over the next four centuries, Portuguese control spread to various parts of India, mostly along the west coast of the country, but also in the northeast in Bengal. During this time, the Portuguese […]
The Portuguese conquests of the 15th and 16th centuries are a remarkable chapter in the history of empire. Throughout the 16th century the Portuguese retained a dominant position in the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean and an important share of the trade east of the Strait of Malacca. At the heart of this mercantile […]
In 1492, when Christopher Columbus set off from Spain to find a westward route to Asia, he was looking to secure Europe’s kitchen, not change it. Europeans had used black pepper as a medicinal aid and to spice up their cooking since Greek and Roman times. The ingredient, imported from the Spice Islands of Asia, […]
Chittagong (Xatigan in Portuguese), the second largest city and main port of Bangladesh, was home to a thriving trading post of the Portuguese Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Portuguese first arrived in Chittagong around 1528 and left in 1666 after the Mughal conquest. It was the first European colonial enclave in the historic region of Bengal. […]
The Qal’at al-Bahrain, also known as the Bahrain Fort or Fort of Bahrain and previously as the Portugal Fort (Qal’at al Portugal) is an archaeological site located in Bahrain, on the Arabian Peninsula. Archaeological excavations carried out since 1954 have unearthed antiquities from an artificial mound of 12 m (39 ft) height containing seven stratified layers, created by […]
The early core of the fortress system was a quadrilateral tower called Fortaleza de Malaca. Measurement was given as 10 fathoms per side with a height of 40 fathoms. It was constructed at the foot of the fortress hill, next to the sea. To its east was constructed a circular wall of mortar and stone […]
Portuguese Malacca was the territory of Malacca that, for 130 years (1511–1641), was a Portuguese colony. According to the 16th-century Portuguese historian Emanuel Godinho de Erédia, the site of the old city of Malacca was named after the Myrobalans, fruit-bearing trees along the banks of a river called Airlele (Ayer Leleh). The Airlele river was […]