Circa 1480-1521
Explorer

Circumnavigation. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailing for the Spanish, is credited as the first person to circumnavigate the globe, despite the fact that he did not complete the journey. His voyage was not the first one seeking a water passage through America into the Pacific Ocean. The water route that he successfully navigated around the southern tip of South America bears his name: The Straits of Magellan. While in the Philippines in 1521, Magellan intervened in a civil war and was killed, but one of his five ships (Victoria) did sail around the world. Juan Sebastian del Cano, Magellan's Basque assistant, completed the journey in 1522 and thus became the first to actually circumnavigate the globe. The three-year journey was a crucial voyage for cartographers, who could finally correct Christopher Columbus's miscalculation of the earth's circumference.

Portuguese Experience. Magellan's name is well known in the...