Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
I'm skeptical. No matter how good the Phoenician sailors were, it seems unlikely to me that they could have blithely sailed past Cape Bojador[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador</a> Maybe if they had small enough boats to stick close to the shore and portage.<p>Seafaring on the Mediterranean is simply a lot less complex than it is on the open ocean. The European sailors were not able to pass this point till the 15th century CE; not saying they were better sailors, but that 2000 years later maritime technology was a lot better.<p>[1] I put in footnotes to point out how stupid footnotes are on HN: just past the link into the text up above, it gets highlighted and works just fine.