John II (1455-1495) ruled as king of Portugal from 1481 until his death on Oct. 25, 1495. John was born in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 3, 1455. His father was Alfonso V, and his great-grandfather was John I, founder of the House of Aviz. John II is considered one of the great Portuguese rulers, due to his exertion of royal authority over the noble houses of Portugal, the resumption of the exploration of Africa, the development of trade routes, and the search for India.
About 1483, John received Christopher Columbus’s proposed plan to travel westward to find India. The king placed Columbus’s proposal before his council, which rejected it on the grounds that Columbus had greatly underestimated the length of the journey. The king’s advisers thought that Portugal’s resources should be invested in finding a route around Africa to Asia. This course was decided upon, and in the following years, expeditions to find the southern extremity of Africa were mounted by Diogo Cão and other Portuguese navigators. In 1487, John ordered Bartolomeu Dias to try to sail to the southern tip of Africa. In 1488, Dias led the first European voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, named for the hope that its discovery would lead to a sea route to India.
In 1494, John signed the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain. The treaty helped set the Line of Demarcation, an imaginary line to divide the claims of Portugal and Spain to new lands discovered by their explorers. This agreement later supported Portugal’s claim to territory that is now eastern Brazil.
