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How did Bartolomeu Dias prove that a sea route to Asia around Africa was possible?

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Map showing the transatlantic and global routes of major early voyages of discovery and exploration by Spain, Portugal, England, and France during the 15th and 16th centuries. The map traces the journeys of explorers such as Columbus, Cabot, Magellan, da Gama, and others, with labeled paths crossing the Atlantic and encircling Africa and South America, as well as lines of demarcation dividing Spanish and Portuguese exploration zones. — European exploration Map depicting the European exploration of the New World in the 15th and 16th centuries, including the voyages made by Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci, Pedro Álvares Cabral, Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián del Cano, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Jacques Cartier, Sir Francis Drake, and others. The lines of demarcation represent an early division between the territory of Spain (to the west) and Portugal (to the east).

Bartolomeu Dias proved that a sea route to Asia around Africa was possible by leading the first European expedition to successfully round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.1

Commissioned by King John II to find the southern limit of the African continent, Dias sailed south along the coast until storms forced his fleet into the open Atlantic Ocean away from the shoreline. When he turned back toward the coast, he found that he had bypassed the southern tip of Africa without seeing it.1

Continuing eastward, he reached the Great Fish River before his crew, exhausted and facing strong currents, insisted on returning home. On his return journey, he sighted the cape itself, confirming that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected. This achievement opened the maritime path to Asia, which was later fully realized by Vasco da Gama in 1498.12