Magellan's Circumnavigation

In 1519, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain with a fleet of five ships to find a western route to the Spice Islands in Southeast Asia. The expedition sailed across the Atlantic, followed the coast of South America and searched for a passage to the ocean beyond the continent. In October 1520, the crews entered the strait now known as the Strait of Magellan.

After crossing it, they reached an enormous ocean that Magellan called the Pacific because its waters appeared calm at first. The crossing took months, and the expedition suffered from hunger, illness and deaths. The ships eventually reached the Philippines in 1521, where Magellan became involved in a local conflict. Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan on 27 April 1521, so he did not complete the journey around the world.

After his death, the expedition continued under other commanders. Juan Sebastián Elcano eventually took command of the Victoria, the only remaining ship, and sailed westward across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and back to Spain. The Victoria arrived in September 1522 with only a small part of the original crew.

The voyage became the first expedition to circumnavigate Earth, demonstrating in practice the vast scale of the planet and the connection between the world's oceans. It also provided Europeans with important geographical knowledge, although the journey came at a very high human cost and took place within the wider context of European expansion and colonization.