History of Madagascar
By the 15th century, Europeans had wrested control of the spice trade from the Muslims. They did this by bypassing the Middle East and sending their cargo-ships around the Cape of Good Hope to India. The Portuguese mariner Diogo Dias became the first European to set foot on Madagascar when his ship, bound for India, blew off course in 1500. In the ensuing two-hundred years, the English and French tried (and failed) to establish settlements on the island.
David W. Krause
David W. Krause is a Canadian-born vertebrate paleontologist currently working as Senior Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which he joined in 2016. Prior to that he was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University, where he was employed for 34 years. His work primarily focuses on fossils from the Cretaceous period of Madagascar, and he often travels to the island to uncover new fossils. He is most famous for his discoveries of "Majungasaurus crenatissimus" and "Beezlebufo ampinga". Krause is also the founder of the Madagascar Ankizy Fund (www.ankizy.org), which is dedicated to educating and providing healthcare for poor children in Madagascar.