MILITARY PERSONNELS from Portugal

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Portuguese Military Personnels of all time. This list of famous Portuguese Military Personnels is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Cristóvão da Gama (1516 - 1542)

With an HPI of 54.64, Cristóvão da Gama is the most famous Portuguese Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages on wikipedia.

Cristóvão da Gama (c. 1516 – 29 August 1542), anglicised as Christopher da Gama, was a Portuguese military commander who led a Portuguese army of 400 musketeers to assist Ethiopia that faced Islamic Jihad from the Adal Sultanate led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. He, along with the allied Ethiopian army, was victorious against Adal forces in four battles, but he was seriously wounded in his last battle and was captured, tortured, and executed by Imam Ahmad. Richard Burton, in his First Footsteps in East Africa, referred to Gama as "the most chivalrous soldier of a chivalrous age".

2. Pedro Teixeira (1585 - 1641)

With an HPI of 50.10, Pedro Teixeira is the 2nd most famous Portuguese Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Pedro Teixeira (b.1570-1585 - d.4 July 1641), occasionally referred to as the Conqueror of the Amazon, was a Portuguese explorer and military officer, who became, in 1637, the first European to travel up and down the entire length of the Amazon River, he also headed the government of the captaincy of Pará in two different periods, one in 1620-1621 and another in 1640–1641. Teixeira was born either in 1570 or 1585 at the Vila of Cantanhede, born to a noble family, he was a Knight of the Order of Christ and a Portuguese nobleman in service of the royal family, he married Ana Cunha in Praia, Azores, daughter of Sargento-Mor Diogo de Campos Moreno, with whom Teixeira fought together in Maranhão First arriving in Brazil on 1607, Teixeira participated in Portugal's campaign against French Maranhão, he fought in the Battle of Guaxenduba and distinguished himself commanding either the fort of Natividade or Santa Maria. Because of Teixeira and other Portuguese who pushed into the depths of the Amazon, Portugal was able to obtain far more of South America from their Spanish competitors than the Treaty of Tordesillas had granted in 1494. Teixeira's expedition became the first simultaneously to travel up and down the Amazon River. He was called by the Indian natives Curiua-Catu, meaning The Good and Friendly White Man.

3. Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (1465 - 1530)

With an HPI of 48.22, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira is the 3rd most famous Portuguese Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

D.Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (1465–1530) was a Portuguese fidalgo, sent to analyze the trade potential in Madagascar and Malacca. He arrived at Malacca on 11 September 1509 and left the next year when he discovered that Sultan Mahmud Shah was planning his assassination. This gave Afonso de Albuquerque the opportunity to embark upon his expedition of conquests. Sequeira was subsequently made governor of Portuguese India (1518–1522), and in 1520 led a military campaign into the Red Sea which hastened the first legitimate Portuguese embassy to Ethiopia.