Pulicat (Pazhaverkadu) is a historic seashore town in “north of Chennai” in Thiruvallur District, of Tamil Nadu state, South India. It is about 60 km north of Chennai and 3 km from Elavur, on the barrier island of Sriharikota, which separates Pulicat Lake from the Bay of Bengal. Portuguese trading outpost In 1502, the Portuguese traders established […]
The Portuguese East India Company, Companhia do commércio da Índia or Companhia da Índia Oriental was a short-lived ill-fated attempt by Philip III of Portugal, King of the Iberian Union, to create a national chartered company to look after interests in Portuguese India in the face on encroachment by the Dutch andEnglish following the union of the […]
The Nossa Senhora da Graça incident, alternatively called the Madre de Deus incident, was a four-day naval action between a Portuguese carrack and samurai junks belonging to the Arima clan near the waters of Nagasaki in 1610. The richly-laden “great ship of commerce”, famed as the “black ship” by the Japanese, sank after its captain […]
Why Muslim Curtain? If you look out at how you could get from Europe to Asia, the promised land of goodies, you’d see a “wall” of Muslim states—Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals— blocking you by land and by sea. How to get around this—and get one over on the infidel Muslims, who were increasing in power and were richer […]