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Henry the Navigator Biography

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HENRY THE NAVIGATOR (1394-1460). A Portuguese prince, celebrated as a munificent patron of voyagers and explorers. He was the fifth son of John I, King of Portugal, and was born at Oporto, March 4, 1394. He first distinguished himself at the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. Soon after this he took up his residence at the town of Sagres, not far from Cape St. Vincent, and while prosecuting the war against the Moors of Africa exerted himself in every way to decipher the mystery of the great continent upon which the Portuguese had but recently set foot. Under his inspiration Portuguese sailors reached parts of the ocean which the navigators of the time had long supposed to be inaccessible. The grand ambition of Henry was the discovery of unknown regions of the world. At Sagres he founded an observatory, to which he attached a school for the instruction of youthful scions of the nobility in the sciences necessary to navigation. Subsequently he dispatched some of his pupils on voyages of discovery along the western coast of Africa. Creeping down the coast by short and steady stages, these expeditions during Prince Henry's lifetime succeeded in unraveling the unknown shore line of Africa to within 15 ° of the equator. The Madeira Islands had been reached in 1420; in 1434 Cape Bojador was doubled: in 1441 Cape Blanco was reached; in 1445 Cape Verde, in Senegambia, was doubled; and in 1455 Cadamosto reached the mouth of the Gambia. Prince Henry died at Sagres, Nov. 13 1460; but the impulse which he had imparted to the maritime enterprise of the Portuguese continued for more than 50 years after his death and resulted in the circumnavigation of Africa and in the upbuilding of a Portuguese empire in India and in Brazil. The science of navigation, which before his time can hardly be said to have constituted a science at all, is indebted to Prince Henry for many important improvements. Consult: Major, Life of Prince Henry of Portugal (London, 1808) ; id., Discoveries of Prince Henry the Navigator (ib., 1877); Beazley, Prince Henry the Navigator (ib., 1895); J. P. Oliveira Martins, The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator (New York, 1914).