Ibn Khaldun or Aith Khaldoun was a Arab Muslim historiographer and historian, and one of the founding fathers of modern historiography, sociology and economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomena in Greek), which w...

Selim I, also known as "the Excellent," "the Brave" or the best translation "the Stern", Yavuz in Turkish, the long name is Yavuz Sultan Selim; was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. He was also the first Ottoman Sultan to...

Dom Vasco da Gama, (c.1460s-1524) was a Portuguese explorer. He was the first European to reach India by sea, linking for the first time Europe and Asia by ocean route, as well as the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively...

Hayreddin Barbarossa was an Ottoman admiral of the fleet who was born in the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos) and died in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ottoman dominance over the Medi...

Dragut was an Ottoman Greek Admiral and privateer who also served as Bey of Algiers; Beylerbey of the Mediterranean; and first Bey, later Pasha, of Tripoli. Under his naval command the Ottoman Empire's maritime power was extended across Nor...

Joannes Leo Africanus, or al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, was a Moorish diplomat and author who is best known for his book Descrittione dell’Africa (Description of Africa) describing the geography of North Africa. Most of what is k...

The Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India was the first recorded trip directly from Europe to India, via the Cape of Good Hope. Under the command of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, it was undertaken during the reign of King Manu...

Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the coast of Africa in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometers (560 mi) east of Madagascar. In addition to the island of Mauritius, the republic includes the i...

Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, commonly known as Reis Mourad the Younger, was a Dutch pirate in Morocco who converted to Islam after being captured by a Moorish state in 1618. He began serving as a pirate, one of the most famous of the 17th-cent...

Jan van Riebeeck was a Dutch navigator and colonial administrator who arrived in Cape Town in the Dutch Cape Colony at the behest of the Dutch East India Company. He also spent some time in Malaysia as part of his profession and served a...

In the year 1598 AD, Portuguese sailors landing on the shores of the island of Mauritius discovered a previously unknown species of bird, the Dodo. Having been isolated by its island location from contact with humanity, the dodo greeted the...

Olivier Levasseur was a pirate, nicknamed La Buse ("The Buzzard") or La Bouche ("The Mouth") in his early days, called thus because of the speed and ruthlessness with which he always attacked his enemies. He is also known for allegedly hidi...

Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais (comte de La Bourdonnais) was a French naval officer and administrator, in the service of the French East India Company. He went to sea when a boy, and in 1718 entered the service of the French East...

Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein was a Dutch Christian minister of Ghanaian birth who was one of the first known sub-Saharan Africans to study at a European university and one of the first Africans to be ordained as a minister in the Dutch R...

George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, was an Irish-born British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat. He is often remembered for his observation following Britain's success in the Seven Years War and subsequent territorial expansi...