Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal is most often credited with ushering in the Age of Exploration (Age of Discovery).

Who gets the credit?

Most historians point to Prince Henry the Navigator (Infante Dom Henrique), a 15th‑century Portuguese prince, as the European who initiated the first sustained program of overseas exploration. He sponsored systematic voyages down the west coast of Africa, which laid the groundwork for later expeditions by explorers such as Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama.

Why Henry the Navigator?

  • He organized and financed regular voyages along the African coast starting in the early 1400s.
  • He promoted advances in navigation and ship design, helping develop the caravel, a more maneuverable ocean‑going vessel.
  • His goal was to find a sea route around Africa toward Asia and to expand Christian and commercial influence.

How this led to the Age of Exploration

Henry’s sponsored expeditions demonstrated the feasibility and profit of long‑distance Atlantic and African voyages. This momentum directly paved the way for later landmark journeys, including Dias rounding the Cape of Good Hope (1488) and da Gama reaching India by sea (1498), which fully opened the Age of Exploration.

So, if a quiz or forum asks “which European is credited with ushering in the Age of Exploration?”, the expected answer is: Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.