Bartolomeu Dias

A statue of Bartolomeu Dias in Cape Town

Bartolomeu Dias, also known as Bartholomew Dias,(1450 - May 29, 1500) was a Portuguese explorer who was the first European to sail past the Cape of Good Hope. In 1487, King John II from Portugal asked Dias to search for the land of a Christian king named Prester John in the east. Because Prester John did not really exist, he did not find the land but instead found a route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian ocean leading to Asia in 1488. Commanding a ship in Pedro Álvares Cabral´s expedition to Brazil he died at sea in 1500 during a storm. There was a statue made for him later in Cape Town, South Africa.