Magellan who is he

In the early days of the navigation of the strait, the crew of the San Antonio forced its captain to desert, and the ship turned and fled across the Atlantic Ocean back to Spain. They were the first known Europeans to see the great ocean, which Magellan named Mar Pacifico, the Pacific Ocean, for its apparent peacefulness, a stark contrast to the dangerous waters of the strait from which he had just emerged. In fact, extremely rough waters are not uncommon in the Pacific Ocean, where tsunamis, typhoons and hurricanes have done serious damage to the Pacific Islands and Pacific Rim nations throughout history.

Little was known about the geography beyond South America at that time, and Magellan optimistically estimated that the trip across the Pacific would be rapid.

In fact, it took three months for the fleet to make its way slowly across the vast Mar Pacifico. Magellan was now closer than ever to reaching the Spice Islands, but when the Cebu asked for his help in fighting their neighbors on the island of Mactan, Magellan agreed.

He assumed he would command a swift victory with his superior European weapons, and against the advice of his men, Magellan himself led the attack. The Mactanese fought fiercely, and Magellan fell when he was shot with a poison arrow. Ferdinand Magellan died on April 27, In the end, only the Victoria completed the voyage around the world and arrived back in Seville, Spain, in September with a heavy cargo of spices but with only 18 men from the original crew, including Italian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta.

The journal Pigafaetta kept on the voyage is a key record of what the crew encountered on their journey home. Although the trip westward from Europe to the east via the Strait of Magellan had been discovered and mapped, the journey was too long and dangerous to become a practical route to the Spice Islands.

He found not only a massive ocean, hitherto unknown to Europeans, but he also discovered that the earth was much larger than previously thought. Though Magellan is often credited with the first circumnavigation on the globe, he did so on a technicality: He first made a trip from Europe to the Spice Islands, eastward via the Indian Ocean, and then later made his famous westward voyage that brought him to the Philippines.

So he did cover the entire terrain, but it was not a strict point A to point A, round-the-world trip, and it was made in two different directions. His slave, Enrique, however, was born in either Cebu or Mallaca and came to Europe with Magellan by ship. So Enrique was the first person to circumnavigate the world in one direction, from point A to point A. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Spaniards and Portuguese made up the vast majority of the sailors, but the voyage also included mariners from Greece, Sicily, England, Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again.

Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Subjects: History. Reference entries Magellan, Ferdinand c. Magellan, Ferdinand c. All rights reserved. Sign in to annotate. They then sailed on to the Philippines. On 27 April , Magellan was killed there after becoming involved in a battle between two rival local chieftains. One ship from the fleet eventually reached Spain in September , having completed the first ever circumnavigation of the globe.

Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. Magellan was Portuguese, but sailed on behalf of Spain. He was a formidable captain, but his crew hated him. Brutal, bellicose, and brave, Magellan turned a commercial voyage into a hair-raising showdown with a wide world few Europeans could imagine.

At the beginning of his journey, his contemporaries suspected it was impossible to sail around the entire globe—and feared that everything from sea monsters to killer fogs awaited anyone foolhardy enough to try. As a page to queen consort Eleanor and Manuel I, he experienced court life in Lisbon. But the young man had a sense of adventure, and took part in a string of Portuguese voyages designed to discover and seize lucrative spice routes in Africa and India.

At the time, Portugal and Spain were involved in an intense rivalry to see who could find and claim new territory where they could source the spices coveted by European aristocrats. In , Magellan joined the fight, traveling to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. But his days in service to Portugal were numbered: He was accused of illegal trading and fell out with Manuel I, who turned down his proposal to locate a new spice route.

Magellan was convinced that by sailing west instead of east and going through a rumored strait through South America, he could map a new route to Indonesia and India.

The captain stood to gain great wealth and status from the trip: Charles gave him a decade-long monopoly on any route he might discover, a cut of the profits, and a noble title to boot. But he was in an awkward position when it came to his majority-Spanish crew and his royal mission. One ship wrecked; another ditched the expedition altogether and headed back to Spain.

The captain struggled to regain control of his men, but once he did, the repercussions were swift and harsh. He ordered some of the mutineers beheaded and quartered; others were marooned or forced into hard labor. As the crew forged across the Pacific Ocean, food spoiled and scurvy and starvation struck. Magellan and his men briefly made landfall in what was likely Guam , where they killed indigenous people and burned their homes in response to the theft of a small boat.