Cape Route

There are anecdotes about circumnavigation of Africa in ancient times; according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition commissioned by Egyptian king Necho II completed a voyage from the Red Sea to the Nile delta around 600 BC.

Christopher Columbus sought to find a westward sea route to the Indian subcontinent, but instead found the way to the Americas.

These expeditions marked the beginning of the Age of Discovery, in which European explorers charted the world's oceans.

The European colonization of Africa was before the late 19th century mostly limited to a few coastal outposts, to support the Cape Route.

Capesize ships are those too large for the Suez Canal, which need to use the Cape Route between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

Ptolemy's world map implied that Africa was part of an outer landmass, separating the Atlantic from the Indian Ocean.
The early Portuguese Empire centered around the Cape Route.
In 1500, Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral used the prevailing winds on the Atlantic for a volta do mar , and thereby became the first European to arrive in Brazil . European sailors found the stop useful on the way to India.
Since the Suez Canal opened, the Cape Route has been used when passage through Suez is refused, or by Capesize ships. In the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War , the Dogger Bank incident forced the Russian fleet to sail around Africa.