Brief History of Goa
For 450 years the Portuguese ruled Goa.
Began when Vasco De Gama, an intrepid Portuguese mariner, discovered the sea route to India and landed at Calicut in May 1498. Twelve years later Afonso de Albuquerque, a daring soldier, conquered Goa. And so began an era of
changing fortunes and attitudes, of splendour and greed, pomp and misery, the tyranny of conquerors and the compassion of missionaries, the daring of adventures and the abnegation of martyrs. The Portuguese did not
quite realise four centuries later that they had overstayed their welcome and that it was time for them to leave Goa and allow it to be re-united with India. Eventually, they were ousted from Goa, after an armed action ordered by
the Government of India, on 19th December 1961.
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