Portuguese king Afonso V supports the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean led by Prince Henry the Navigator.

Four years after the Portuguese discovery of the uninhabited Cape Verde Islands off the western tip of Africa, Portuguese mariner Pedro de Sintra reaches the region of present Sierra Leone.

By the death of Henry the Navigator at sixty-six on November 13, 1460, the Portuguese have rounded the bulge of West Africa and reached the Guinea coast, but from this point forward Afonso will do nothing to pursue this course of action.