Disasters in the Age of Discovery

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The dawn of the age of European exploration in the 16th century was absurdly dangerous. Crews on the ships of Christopher Columbus, Vasco De Gama and Ferdinand Magellan often sailed blind into uncharted waters, battling hurricanes and deadly reefs. With crude navigation tools, rotting food, and disease-ridden ships, survival was never guaranteed. Crews were pushed to their limits—physically, mentally, and morally. Some were deceived into the journey, and others driven by blind hope.

In this episode, Dan is joined by Simon Parker, an associate professor in Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese at the University of Oxford, to tell some of the stories of extraordinary failure and disaster in the age of discovery.

His new book is called Wreckers: Disaster in the Age of Discovery

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the story of how India became a cultural superpower.
0:05.0	In my Sunday Times best-selling book, The Golden Road,
0:08.0	join me, William Derrimple, co-host of the Empire podcast,
0:11.0	on a revelatory journey to reinstate India to its rightful place at the heart of the ancient world.
0:17.0	From the Buddhism of China to the creation of the numerals we still all use today, discover
0:21.8	the revolutionary Indian ideas that blazed across the globe, the Golden Road, available now
0:27.3	in paperback and on audiobook. What inspired the serene images we all know of the Buddha? Where
0:33.6	does the image of the playful god Ganesha with his elephant head come from? Discover remarkable stories from ancient India in this major new exhibition.
0:42.3	Now open at the British Museum.
0:44.3	Be transported back more than 2,000 years through the breathtaking early art of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
0:51.3	Ancient India Living Traditions runs until the 19th of October. Book your tickets at
0:56.9	British Museum.org slash ancient India.
1:04.0	In the 1640s, a Jesuit priest named Father Antonio Gomes was shipwrecked on the Swahili coast.
1:19.6	He was on his way back from Portugal's Indian Ocean Empire.
1:23.6	He was one of the lucky ones. He was washed up on the shore and he dragged himself to the
1:28.7	nearest village and asked for the local chief. He described an old man. It looked to Gomez like
1:35.5	this man could have been around since Vasco da Gama's era, around 150 years before. Gomez recounts that I started to complain about the sea,
1:46.8	that done us so much wrong,
1:49.2	and he gave me an answer which I considered very wise.
1:52.9	The old chief said,
1:54.4	Master, if you know the sea is crazy and has no brain,
1:58.7	why do you venture upon it?
	...

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