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The Battle of Diu: How Portugal Crushed the Mamluk Fleet
In 1509, off the coast of Gujarat, a small Portuguese fleet under Francisco de Almeida annihilated a combined Mamluk-Gujarati force in a battle that would define the Indian Ocean for centuries. This episode unpacks the Battle of Diu — the ships, the cannon, the alliances, and the aftermath. We meet Lourenço de Almeida, whose death in an earlier skirmish set the stage for his father's vengeance, and Malik Ayaz, the Gujarati governor who saw Portugal as a useful rival to the Mamluks. We discuss the Mamluk navy, built in the Red Sea with timber from the Black Sea, and how their defeat…
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