<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article does not cite any sources . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (February 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article does not cite any sources . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (February 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The European - Asian sea route, also known as the sea route to India or the Cape Route is a shipping route from European coast of the Atlantic Ocean to Asia's coast of the Indian Ocean passing by the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas at the southern edge of Africa . The first recorded completion of the route was made in 1498 by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama . The route was important during the Age of Sail, but became partly obsolete as the Suez Canal opened in 1869 . </P> <P> Scholars of classical antiquity disagreed whether the Atlantic was connected to the Indian Ocean . 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 . Eudoxus of Cyzicus explored the West African coast, but was forced to return . Ptolemy's world map, on which the geographic knowledge of medieval Europe was founded, displays the oceans as separated from each other . </P>

Who opened a route to india by sailing around the southern coast of africa