The First Maritime Circumnavigation of the Globe
Overview
Fewer than three decades after Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) made his voyage to the New World, Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480-1521) set sail in 1519 with nearly 600 men and five ships on a voyage to the Spice Islands (East Indies) via a westward route from Spain. Magellan, undervalued by the Portuguese crown, made the trip under the Spanish flag. They crossed the Atlantic, sailed down the eastern coast of South America, rounded the southern tip of the continent through the shortcut now called the Strait of Magellan and named the Pacific Ocean before reaching the eastern shores of Asia. Although Magellan died partway through the trip, one of the five ships in the fleet completed what became the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522.
Background
At the time of the Magellan voyage around the world, Europeans had known for less than two decades that South America existed, let alone the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the continent. A Portuguese mariner first discovered South America while following a standard maritime practice of sailing the currents of the Atlantic Ocean far to the west before circling back to Africa. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral (c.
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