magellan journey map

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▶ view series: the age of discovery, magellan’s voyage 1519-1522.

This map is part of a series of 16 animated maps showing the history of The Age of Discovery.

The expedition led by Magellan was expected to sail as far as the Spice Islands to the west by sailing around the American continent.

It was financed by Spain, which hoped to gain access to these islands and their spices without crossing the Indian Ocean, then dominated by the Portuguese.

Magellan knew that there was an ocean between the New World and Asia, and he had information on the South American coast as far as the Rio de la Plata.

The presence of this deep bay at roughly the same latitude as the southernmost point in Africa made Magellan hope that there was a passage across the new continent.

His fleet of five ships left Spain on 20 September 1519.

In December, it made its first port of call in the bay of what is now Rio de Janeiro.

By mid-January, the ships had reached the Rio de la Plata. Magellan soon realized that this bay did not offer a passage across the continent.

Continuing south, the fleet had to sail through increasingly difficult weather conditions. At the end of March, Magellan decided to wait until the end of the southern winter in a sheltered bay known as the San Julian Bay.

During these 5 winter months, the explorer had to put down a mutiny with force, and one of his ships, the Santiago, which had been sent to explore a neighbouring bay, capsized.

The fleet set off again in August. By the end of October, it had reached a large bay in which the strong currents made Magellan think that he had found the long-sought-after passage.

It took him another month to navigate through the maze of canals, and during this time the crew of the San Antonio mutinied and decided to return to Spain.

The three remaining ships finally found their way into the new sea on 27 November.

The crossing of the Pacific Ocean was particularly long and arduous. After three and a half months, the crew was weak with hunger and scurvy, but they finally reached the Mariana Islands, where they were able to take on stores before continuing on their journey west.

The expedition made land in the Philippines on 17 March 1521, but Magellan was killed a few weeks later during a fight with the local population.

Since they had lost a lot of men, it was decided to burn one of the three ships.  The last two ships, the Trinidad and the Victoria, reached their target, the Spice Islands, on 28 November.

Laden with spices, the two ships set off on their return journey, taking two opposite directions. The Trinidad did not succeed in making the journey back to Europe via the Pacific Ocean, while the Victoria decided to sail to Spain via the Indian Ocean.

It rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 18 May, and sailed north through the Atlantic, making a port call in the Islands of Cap Verde. The Victoria reached Spain on 6 September 1522, almost exactly three years after its departure.

This expedition, which succeeded the crossing of an immense and totally unknown ocean, is one of the greatest adventures in the history of navigation and proved that it was possible to sail around the world.

Voyages of Ferdinand Magellan

First voyage, king charles i finances the voyage, rio de janeiro, strait of magellan, philippines, death in battle, rounding the cape, voyage home.

The Magellan expedition, also known as the Magellan–Elcano expedition, was the first voyage around the world. It was a 16th century Spanish expedition initially led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to the Moluccas, which departed from Spain in 1519, and completed in 1522 by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, after crossing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, culminating in the first circumnavigation of the world.

The expedition accomplished its primary goal – to find a western route to the Moluccas (Spice Islands). The fleet left Spain on 20 September 1519, sailed across the Atlantic ocean and down the eastern coast of South America, eventually discovering the Strait of Magellan, allowing them to pass through to the Pacific Ocean (which Magellan named). The fleet completed the first Pacific crossing, stopping in the Philippines , and eventually reached the Moluccas after two years. A much-depleted crew led by Juan Sebastián Elcano finally returned to Spain on 6 September 1522, having sailed west across the great Indian Ocean, then around the Cape of Good Hope through waters controlled by the Portuguese and north along the Western African coast to eventually arrive in Spain.

The fleet initially consisted of five ships and about 270 men. The expedition faced numerous hardships including Portuguese sabotage attempts, mutinies, starvation, scurvy, storms, and hostile encounters with indigenous people. Only 30 men and one ship (the Victoria) completed the return trip to Spain. Magellan himself died in battle in the Philippines, and was succeeded as captain-general by a series of officers, with Elcano eventually leading the Victoria's return trip.

The expedition was funded mostly by King Charles I of Spain, with the hope that it would discover a profitable western route to the Moluccas, as the eastern route was controlled by Portugal under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Though the expedition did find a route, it was much longer and more arduous than expected, and was therefore not commercially useful. Nevertheless, the expedition is regarded as one of the greatest achievements in seamanship, and had a significant impact on the European understanding of the world.

In March 1505 at the age of 25, Magellan enlisted in the fleet of 22 ships sent to host Francisco de Almeida as the first viceroy of Portuguese India . Although his name does not appear in the chronicles, it is known that he remained there eight years, in Goa, Cochin and Quilon. He participated in several battles, including the battle of Cannanore in 1506, where he was wounded. In 1509 he fought in the battle of Diu.

After having his proposed expeditions to the Spice Islands repeatedly rejected by King Manuel of Portugal, Magellan turned to Charles I, the young King of Spain (and future Holy Roman Emperor). Under the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, Portugal controlled the eastern routes to Asia that went around Africa. Magellan instead proposed reaching the Spice Islands by a western route, a feat which had never been accomplished. Hoping that this would yield a commercially useful trade route for Spain , Charles approved the expedition, and provided most of the funding.

On 10 August 1519, the five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and descended the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river. There they remained more than five weeks. The fleet left Spain on 20 September 1519, sailing west across the Atlantic toward South America. Magellan's fleet consisted of five ships, carrying supplies for two years of travel. The crew consisted of about 270 men. Most were Spanish, but around 40 were Portuguese.

On 13 December, the fleet reached Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . Though nominally Portuguese territory, they maintained no permanent settlement there at the time. Seeing no Portuguese ships in the harbour, Magellan knew it would be safe to stop.

The fleet spent 13 days in Rio, during which they repaired their ships, stocked up on water and food (such as yam, cassava, and pineapple), and interacted with the locals. The expedition had brought with them a great quantity of trinkets intended for trade, such as mirrors, combs, knives and bells. The locals readily exchanged food and local goods (such as parrot feathers) for such items. The crew also found they could purchase sexual favours from the local women. Historian Ian Cameron described the crew's time in Rio as "a saturnalia of feasting and lovemaking".

On 27 December, the fleet left Rio de Janeiro. Pigafetta wrote that the natives were disappointed to see them leave, and that some followed them in canoes trying to entice them to stay.

After three months of searching (including a false start in the estuary of Río de la Plata), weather conditions forced the fleet to stop their search to wait out the winter. They found a sheltered natural harbor at the port of Saint Julian, and remained there for five months. Shortly after landing at St. Julian, there was a mutiny attempt led by the Spanish captains Juan de Cartagena, Gaspar de Quesada and Luis de Mendoza. Magellan barely managed to quell the mutiny, despite at one point losing control of three of his five ships to the mutineers. Mendoza was killed during the conflict, and Magellan sentenced Quesada and Cartagena to being beheaded and marooned, respectively. Lower-level conspirators were made to do hard labor in chains over the winter, but later freed.

During the winter, one of the fleet's ships, the Santiago, was lost in a storm while surveying nearby waters, though no men were killed. Following the winter, the fleet resumed their search for a passage to the Pacific in October 1520. Three days later, they found a bay which eventually led them to a strait, now known as the Strait of Magellan, which allowed them passage through to the Pacific. While exploring the strait, one of the remaining four ships, the San Antonio, deserted the fleet, returning east to Spain. The fleet reached the Pacific by the end of November 1520. Based on the incomplete understanding of world geography at the time, Magellan expected a short journey to Asia, perhaps taking as little as three or four days. In fact, the Pacific crossing took three months and twenty days. The long journey exhausted their supply of food and water, and around 30 men died, mostly of scurvy. Magellan himself remained healthy, perhaps because of his personal supply of preserved quince.

On 6 March 1521, the exhausted fleet made landfall at the island of Guam and were met by native Chamorro people who came aboard the ships and took items such as rigging, knives, and a ship's boat. The Chamorro people may have thought they were participating in a trade exchange (as they had already given the fleet some supplies), but the crew interpreted their actions as theft. Magellan sent a raiding party ashore to retaliate, killing several Chamorro men, burning their houses, and recovering the 'stolen' goods

On 16 March, the fleet reached the Philippines , where they would remain for a month and a half. Magellan befriended local leaders on the island of Limasawa, and on 31 March, held the first Mass in the Philippines, planting a cross on the island's highest hill. Magellan set about converting the locals to Christianity . Most accepted the new religion readily, but the island of Mactan resisted.

On 27 April, Magellan and members of his crew attempted to subdue the Mactan natives by force, but in the ensuing battle, the Europeans were overpowered and Magellan was killed by Lapulapu, a native chieftain in Mactan.

Following his death, Magellan was initially succeeded by co-commanders Juan Serrano and Duarte Barbosa (with a series of other officers later leading). The fleet left the Philippines (following a bloody betrayal by former ally Rajah Humabon) and eventually made their way to the Moluccas in November 1521. Laden with spices, they attempted to set sail for Spain in December, but found that only one of their remaining two ships, the Victoria, was seaworthy.

The Victoria set sail via the Indian Ocean route home on 21 December 1521, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. By 6 May 1522 the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations.

Twenty crewmen died of starvation by 9 July 1522, when Elcano put into Portuguese Cape Verde for provisions. The crew was surprised to learn that the date was actually 10 July 1522, as they had recorded every day of the three-year journey without omission. They had no trouble making purchases at first, using the cover story that they were returning to Spain from the Americas. However, the Portuguese detained 13 crew members after discovering that Victoria was carrying spices from the East Indies. The Victoria managed to escape with its cargo of 26 tons of spices (cloves and cinnamon).

On 6 September 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain aboard Victoria, almost exactly three years after they departed. They then sailed upriver to Seville, and from there overland to Valladolid, where they appeared before the Emperor. When Victoria, the one surviving ship and the smallest carrack in the fleet, returned to the harbour of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 men out of the original 270 men were on board. In addition to the returning Europeans, the Victoria had aboard three Moluccans who came aboard at Tidore.

Magellan has come to be renowned for his navigational skill and tenacity. The first circumnavigation has been called "the greatest sea voyage in the Age of Discovery", and even "the most important maritime voyage ever undertaken". Appreciation of Magellan's accomplishments may have been enhanced over time by the failure of subsequent expeditions which attempted to retrace his route, beginning with the Loaísa expedition in 1525 (which featured Juan Sebastián Elcano as second-in-command). The next expedition to successfully complete a circumnavigation, led by Francis Drake, would not occur until 1580, 58 years after the return of the Victoria.

Magellan named the Pacific Ocean (which was also often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century), and lends his name to the Strait of Magellan.

Even though Magellan did not survive the trip, he has received more recognition for the expedition than Elcano has, since Magellan was the one who started it, Portugal wanted to recognize a Portuguese explorer, and Spain feared Basque nationalism.

How Did the Caravel Change the World?

Technology of the age of exploration.

Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese Explorer

Juan Sebastián Elcano

Castilian Explorer

Juan de Cartagena

Spanish Explorer

Francisco de Almeida

Mactan Datu

• The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan, full text, English translation by Lord Stanley of Alderley, London: Hakluyt, [1874] – six contemporary accounts of his voyage
• Guillemard, Francis Henry Hill (1890), The life of Ferdinand Magellan, and the first circumnavigation of the globe, 1480–1521, G. Philip, retrieved 8 April 2009
• Zweig, Stefan (2007), Conqueror of the Seas – The Story of Magellan, Read Books, ISBN 978-1-4067-6006-4

Map #44: Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the Globe, 1519-1522

Ferdinand Magellan   (Paste this into  Google translate  )

Unfortunately the principal  English language sources (Britannica, History.com, and the English Wikipedia) all provide misinformation about the reasons for Magellan’s move to Spain.  Magellan (along with all the major Portuguese cartographers) calculated that the Spice Islands actually should have been owned by Spain (according to the treaty  the two countries signed in 1494.  Hence Magellan, Rui Faleiro, Jorge Reinel, Pedro Reinel, and later Lopo Homen all moved to Spain where these Portuguese mapmakers showed that the islands belonged within the Spanish realm of influence. As the only navigator in the group, Magellan undertook the voyage to prove the point.  Only the Portuguese Google contains the correct information. Google’s translation is not perfect, but it’s better than the above named sites.

Fernão de Magalhães

The correct name of the explorer called “Magellan” in English. “Fernão” can be translated as Ferdinand, but how they obtained “Magellan” from the name pronounced roughly (Ma-Gal-E-Ice) remains a mystery.

Battista Agnese (ca.1500–1564)

One of the most prolific Italian cartographers of the 1530s and 1540s, Agnese directed a workshop that produced scores of maps intended (like this one  for a popular audience.

The map below shows the general route Magellan took across the Atlantic and Pacific.  The marker on the left appears on Philippine  island where he died. The marker at the bottom goes to the passage he discovered around South America, called “The Strait of Magellan.”

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Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the Earth

• Dani Anthony

On September 20, 1519, five ships carrying about 270 men left the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda sailing west — and kept going. Led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the armada’s goal was to reach the Spice Islands of Maluku (in the Indonesian archipelago) and open a new trading route for Spain.

Thus began the first recorded trip around the globe. An almost unimaginably difficult and perilous journey for the crew, Magellan’s voyage was the opening chapter in the rise of global trade and globalization that defines our world today. It also generated important scientific knowledge, including more information about the earth’s circumference and new understandings of global time.

Establishing this new western sailing route was vital to Spain’s future as an international power. In 1494, after Christopher Columbus returned from the West Indies, the Spanish and Portuguese governments signed a deal known as the Treaty of Tordesillas in which the world was divided into two halves: Portugal could colonize and develop trade with Africa, Asia, and the East Indies, while Spain controlled the Americas. By 1515, then, the only way for Spain to access the luxury goods available in the Spice Islands and elsewhere in Asia was via a westward route.

A map showing the demarcation line between Spanish (green) and Portuguese (blue) claims, as resolved in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

It was at this crucial moment that Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão Magalhães) arrived in Spain. A minor Portuguese noble, Magellan possessed an extensive knowledge of mapmaking and sailing, and already had years of experience sailing the Indian Ocean.

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa had marched across the Isthmus of Panama and confirmed that Asia and the Americas were separated by an ocean. Magellan was convinced he could sail around those continents and easily reach this ocean, accessing the Spice Islands beyond.

A posthumous portrait of Ferdinand Magellan, painted c. 16th or 17th century (left) ; a 1516 map of the known world at the time of Magellan's voyage (right).

Unable to convince the Portuguese of the importance of finding a route to the west, Magellan then turned to the new king of Spain, Charles I. If Magellan’s expedition was successful, Spain would have access to the goods of the East again.

Like most Spanish-funded endeavors, the people who sailed on this voyage were a diverse group, including German, Greek, French, and Afro-descended crewmembers. Besides Magellan’s Portuguese close friends and family, Spaniards and other Europeans with sailing experiences were brought in, some of them to work off debts. Magellan’s second-in-command was the Spanish overseer and accountant, Juan de Cartagena, and the chronicler was the Venetian Antonio Pigafetta.

Magellan and João Serrão were the only Portuguese captains, with Magellan in charge of the largest ship, the Trinidad , and Serrão at the helm of the Santiago . Spaniards captained the other three ships ( San Antonio , Concepción , and Victoria ), and constant Spanish scheming against the Portuguese would have grave consequences for the voyage.

A 19th-century illustration of Magellan's armada preparing to set sail in 1519.

Magellan did nothing to promote Spanish trust, keeping the route a tight secret until the ships were at sea. His plan relied on Portuguese sailing routes, which were well known to him but unfamiliar to many of his crew.

As the armada crossed the Atlantic, morale declined precipitously. By the time the ships arrived on the coast of what is now Brazil to wait out the Southern Hemisphere winter, many aboard were suffering from scurvy, and the Spanish captains were in open rebellion against Magellan. Mutiny was in the air, with Juan de Cartagena, who resented Magellan’s secrecy, leading the effort.

Brazil, as depicted in a 1519 atlas.

In the cold of their wintering grounds and with reduced rations, the mutineers made their move. Although they managed to take over as many as three of the five ships, they were eventually captured and Magellan exiled Cartagena to an uninhabited island off the coast.

The winter of 1520 also saw the destruction of the Santiago, which ran aground while on a scouting mission to the south. Although the ship’s crew survived, the loss of the Santiago put more pressure on an already pinched crew.

An 1885 drawing of the Strait of Magellan.

By late spring, surviving on seal and penguin meat, the armada entered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan, the narrow body of water separating mainland South America from the Tierra del Fuego. The armada lost another ship during the passage through the Strait: the San Antonio , which became separated from the rest of the armada, and turned around and returned to Spain.

An engraving (c. 1580–1618) of Magellan crossing the Strait that would bear his name.

Once the three remaining ships reached the other side of the Strait of Magellan, the sea they found was calm and placid. Magellan christened it the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the Pacific, the crew of the remaining ships suffered terribly. Twenty-nine sailors died during the four-month voyage.

In April 1521, the group put into an island in the Pacific: Cebu, in what is now the Philippines . As the first Europeans to see these islands, Magellan’s crew would lay the groundwork for the long Spanish colonization of the archipelago, which lasted until 1898. Magellan befriended the local ruler, Raja Humabon, and became embroiled in local politics, which would be his downfall.

On April 27, 1521, Magellan went to war against the ruler Lapu Lapu on Mactan Island, who refused to bring tribute for Raja Humabon and the King of Spain. Fighting in the shallow waters off the shore, Magellan and 49 of his men squared off against over 1,000 Mactanese warriors. Facing such poor odds, Magellan was killed, as well as seven of his men, and his ships returned to Cebu.

A 19th-century illustration of the death of Magellan (left) ; a plaque in Cebu commemorating the site of Magellan's death, Philippines (right).

Raja Humabon, displeased at the newcomer’s loss, hosted a feast where he poisoned a group of some of the highest-ranking members of the expedition, leaving less than half of the original crew. The rest of the members set sail, fleeing to the safety of the sea. On May 2, 1521, those sailors who remained scuttled the Concepción and divided the crew among the remaining two ships, the Trinidad and the Victoria.

For the next six months the ships engaged in piracy as they made their way to the Spice Islands. Finally, in November, they arrived at the island of Tidore, part of the Malukus, and filled their holds with cloves. The Trinidad, which was taking on water, could not be repaired, and it was abandoned along with its crew.

Detail of a 1590 map showing the Victoria , the only ship from the armada to successfully circumnavigate the earth.

The Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano was elected captain of the remaining ship Victoria, which set sail west to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. This voyage took over six months, during which the crew subsisted on rice alone.

On September 6, 1522, the Victoria at last reached harbor in Spain, nearly three years after first setting out. Of the original 270-strong crew, only eighteen had survived.

Map showing the route and chronology of the circumnavigation voyage from 1519 to 1522.

Although Magellan is remembered today for circumnavigating the globe, his reputation in the expedition’s immediate aftermath took a battering from those who had survived the expedition. Both the sailors of the Victoria , as well as the crew of the San Antonio who had turned back from the Strait of Magellan in 1520, disparaged him.

Juan Elcano, on the other hand, was given a hero’s welcome, even though he had joined the voyage only to receive a royal pardon. He was elevated to the peerage and added a globe and the words “first to circumnavigate me” to his coat of arms. In Spain, the circumnavigation is known as the Magellan-Elcano expedition.

Engraving of Juan Elcano, 1791 (left) ; Juan Elcano's coat of arms, bearing the phrase, "Primus circumdedisti me" ("First to circumnavigate me") (right).

The first recorded circumnavigation had important political, economic, and scientific consequences.

Spain calculated the total circumference of the globe for the first time, and determined that the Pacific was much wider than previously guessed, meaning that they owned some of the Pacific islands as demarcated by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Spain took control of the Philippines, and began exploration of the East Pacific.

Cross erected by Magellan's crew on the island of Cebu.

Magellan’s voyage also opened the door for trade. By the 1600s, Spanish territories produced most of the world’s silver, and around a third of it ended up in China through trade. This would have lasting effects on global strategy and economies, and propel Spain to the height of European power.

Perhaps just as important for us today, however, is the establishment of the International Date Line. Upon return to Spain, the sailors of the Victoria learned that they were a day behind in their reckoning. As they sailed against the Earth’s rotation, they lost hours. Many mysteries of the globe were revealed.

The Ages of Exploration

Ferdinand magellan, age of discovery.

Quick Facts:

He led the first circumnavigation of the world, and is considered the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean

Name : Ferdinand Magellan [fur-dn-and] [muh-jel-uhn]

Birth/Death : 1480-1521

Nationality : Portuguese

Birthplace : Porto or Sabrosa, Portugal

Portrait of Ferdinand Magellan

Half-length portrait of Ferdinand Magellan (circa 1580-1521), first European to circle the globe. The Mariners Museum 1949.0619.000001

Introduction Ferdinand Magellan is known for circumnavigating – sailing around – the world. From Spain he sailed around South America, discovering the Strait of Magellan, and across the Pacific. Though he was killed in the Philippines, his ship the Victoria continued westward to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the globe. But in some cases, his journey was filled with more than he would bargain for. Magellan’s story is filled with war, storms, mutiny, and hostile native encounters.

Biography Early Life Ferdinand Magellan was born in 1480 in Portugal; the exact city is unknown. Many believe it was either Porto or Sabrosa. Ferdinand Magellan is the English version of his name. In Portuguese, his name is Fernão de Magalhães. He came from a noble family. His father was Rui de Magalhães and Alda de Mesquita. Young Magellan was a page in the royal court for the queen of Portugal. Here, he would learn helpful skills such as hunting, fighting, and he would have learned about the stars. 1 His father often traveled to a town called Oporto (also spelled Porto). The harbor here was crowded with shipping and seafaring travelers with tales of adventure. It is possible that Oporto is where Magellan found a love for the sea and exploration. 2 But Ferdinand Magellan was not always an explorer. He began his career as a soldier in the Portuguese navy. He left Portugal in 1505 and sailed to India under the command of Francisco de Almeida. They were sent by King Manuel I to break Muslim sea power in India and Africa. 3 Magellan left Lisbon on March 25, 1505. He would travel and fight in several battles over the next few years.

In 1506, Magellan traveled to the East Indies (modern day Indonesia) and joined expeditions to Spice Islands (also called the Molucca Islands). In February 1509, he took part in the naval Battle of Diu, which marked the decline of Ottoman (modern day Turkey) influence in the area. The Portuguese now had dominance over most of the Indian Ocean. He returned to Lisbon in 1512. A year later, he went to Morocco in Northern Africa where he fought in another battle. During the battle, Magellan received a serious wound that would cause him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. 4 Also while in Morocco, Magellan was accused of stealing. He was proven innocent, but the incident ruined his reputation with the Portuguese king. Magellan wanted to command a voyage to the Spice Islands. He believed he could reach them by sailing west. When he returned to Portugal, he petitioned King Manuel I three times to let him go. The King refused each time. Ferdinand Magellan then went to King Charles I of Spain. The Spanish King agreed to sponsor what would become Magellan’s great voyage around the world.

Voyages Principal Voyage By the end of October 1517, Magellan was in Seville, becoming a Spanish citizen. King Charles I funded Magellan and he set sail September 20, 1519 with a fleet of five ships and roughly 200 men. The five ships were: the Trinidad , captained by Magellan; San Antonio , captained by Juan de Cartagena; Concepción , captained by Gaspar de Quesada; Victoria , captained by Luis de Mendoza; and the Santiago , captained by Juan Serrano. They stopped at the Canary Islands to pick up some supplies, and then continued into the Atlantic Ocean. Magellan received a letter that the Spanish officers planned to kill him after leaving the Canaries. Magellan remained on guard for his life throughout much of the trip. They sailed for several weeks, and by November 20, they crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere. 5 In December, they stopped at Guanabara Bay in southeastern Brazil to resupply once again.

Magellan’s fleet continued on down the coast of South America. He was searching for a passage that connected one ocean to the other. As their journey went on, life at sea became difficult. Food and water became rationed, and the crew was not happy. On April 1, 1520, while at Port St. Julian, the three captains Cartagena, Mendoza, and Quesada called their crews to mutiny. 6 The mutiny was crushed by Magellan. Mendoza had been killed during the mutiny. Quesada and Cartagena were found guilty of murder and treason. Quesada was beheaded for his crime, while Cartagena was left marooned – or stranded – on land when the fleet left. 7 The fleet traveled onward. While near Santa Cruz, the Santiago wrecked while on a scouting mission. They continued south and on October 21, 1520 he finally found the passage they were searching for. Shortly after entering the passage, the San Antonio deserted the mission. On November 8, 1520 the Trinidad , Concepción , and Victoria reached the “Sea of the South.” 8 Today we know it as the Pacific Ocean. This passage at the tip of South America that Ferdinand Magellan had found would later be renamed the Strait of Magellan.

Subsequent Voyages Ferdinand Magellan had problems along the way, but he had finally reached the Pacific Ocean. Once through the strait, Magellan continued northward up the coast of Chile. In March the reached the island we now know as Guam. Here, they found and ate fresh food for the first time in 99 days. 9 Having found a route through South America, Magellan was still determined to reach the Spice Islands. He and his fleet continued west. Along their course, they noticed a constant flow of wind. This air provided steady winds to their back which was very helpful to their sailing. Magellan and his crew had unknowingly discovered “trade winds.” The name would come from the important role they would later play in transoceanic trade. Their journey continued until they reached the Philippines in March of 1521. By this point, Magellan had endured a somewhat difficult yet successful journey. But his luck would not last much longer.

Later Years and Death Throughout the Philippine Islands, Magellan and his men regularly interacted with the natives. At Cebú, The native chief, his wife, and several of the natives were baptized and converted to Christianity. Because of this, Magellan thought he could convince other native tribes to convert. But not all interactions with the natives were friendly. Chief Datu Lapu Lapu of the Mactan Island rejected conversion. So Magellan took a group of about 60 men to attack Mactan. The Mactan’s had about 1500 men. On April 27, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan was killed during battle on the Philippine Islands. The Trinidad and Victoria soon made it to the Spice Islands. The Trinidad needed much repair. So the Victoria , captained by Juan Sebastian Elcano continued on.On December 21,1521, the Victoria sailed across the Indian Ocean to Spain. September 6, 1522, they arrived with only 18 men at Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the coast of Spain.

Legacy Although he died in the Philippines, we recognize Ferdinand Magellan as the first European to circumnavigate the globe. He fearlessly commanded a fleet of ships, one that completed the journey in his name and honor. Several discoveries were made along the way. The Strait of Magellan, off the southern coast of South America, became an important navigational route. His discovery of the trade winds ranks among his most useful and major findings. 10 The expedition gave Europeans a much better understanding of the extent of the Earth’s size. Much of what we know of Magellan’s journey came from Antonio Pigafetta. A crew member of the famed voyage, Pigafetta kept a first hand account of the voyage. He and his story survived the journey around the globe, and his account later was translated. Magellan had set out with a goal to discover a Western sea route to the Spice Islands. What he helped prove, however, is that the world is indeed round, and much bigger than Europeans previously imagined.

• Mervyn D. Kaufman, Ferdinand Magellan (Mankato: Capstone Press, 2004), 6.
• Frederick Albion Ober, Ferdinand Magellan (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1907), 5 – 6.
• Britannica Educational Publishing, The Britannica Guide to Explorers and Explorations That Changed the Modern World (New York: Britannica Educational Publishing, 2010), 77.
• Michael Burgan, Magellan: Ferdinand Magellan and the First Trip Around the World (Mankato: Capstone Publishers, 2001), 11.
• Nancy Smiler Levinson, Magellan and the First Voyage Around the World (New York: Clarion Books, 2001), 55.
• Ober, Ferdinand Magellan , 143 – 148.
• Ober, Ferdinand Magellan , 151 – 153.
• Britannica Educational Publishing, The Britannica Guide , 81.
• Laurence Bergreen, Magellan: Over the Edge of the World (New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2017), 89.

Bibliography

Bergreen, Laurence. Magellan: Over the Edge of the World . New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2017.

Britannica Educational Publishing. The Britannica Guide to Explorers and Explorations That Changed the Modern World . New York: Britannica Educational Publishing, 2010.

Burgan, Michael. Magellan: Ferdinand Magellan and the First Trip Around the World . Mankato: Capstone Publishers, 2001.

Kaufman, Mervyn D. Ferdinand Magellan . Mankato: Capstone Press, 2004.

Levinson, Nancy Smiler. Magellan and the First Voyage Around the World . New York: Clarion Books, 2001.

Ober, Frederick Albion. Ferdinand Magellan . New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1907.

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Ferdinand Magellan

By: History.com Editors

Updated: October 4, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

In search of fame and fortune, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480-1521) set out from Spain in 1519 with a fleet of five ships to discover a western sea route to the Spice Islands. En route he discovered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean. The voyage was long and dangerous, and only one ship returned home three years later. Although it was laden with valuable spices from the East, only 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270 returned with the ship. Magellan himself was killed in battle on the voyage, but his ambitious expedition proved that the globe could be circled by sea and that the world was much larger than had previously been imagined.

Ferdinand Magellan’s Early Years

Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480–1521) was born in Sabrosa, Portugal, to a family of minor Portuguese nobility. At age 12 Ferdinand Magellan ( Fernão de Magalhães in Portuguese and Fernando de Magallanes in Spanish) and his brother Diogo traveled to Lisbon to serve as pages at Queen Leonora’s court. While at the court Magellan was exposed to stories of the great Portuguese and Spanish rivalry for sea exploration and dominance over the spice trade in the East Indies, especially the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, in modern Indonesia. Intrigued by the promise of fame and riches, Magellan developed an interest in maritime discovery in those early years.

Did you know? Clove was the most valuable spice in Europe during Magellan's day. It was used to flavor food, but Europeans also believed that its essence could improve vision, its powder could relieve fevers and that it could enhance intercourse when mixed with milk.

In 1505, Magellan and his brother were assigned to a Portuguese fleet headed for India. Over the next seven years, Magellan participated in several expeditions in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa and was wounded in several battles. In 1513 he joined the enormous 500-ship, 15,000-soldier force sent by King Manuel to Morocco to challenge the Moroccan governor who refused to pay its yearly tribute to the Portuguese empire. The Portuguese easily overwhelmed the Moroccan forces, and Magellan stayed on in Morocco. While there he was seriously wounded in a skirmish, which left him with a limp for the rest of his life.

Magellan: From Portugal to Spain

In the 15th century, spices were at the epicenter of the world economy, much like oil is today. Highly valued for flavoring and preserving food as well as masking the taste of meat gone bad, spices like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and especially black pepper were extremely valuable. Since spices could not be cultivated in cold and arid Europe, no effort was spared to discover the quickest sea route to the Spice Islands. Portugal and Spain led the competition for early control over this critical commodity. Europeans had reached the Spice Islands by sailing east, but none had yet to sail west from Europe to reach the other side of the globe. Magellan was determined to be the first to do so.

By now an experienced seaman, Magellan approached King Manuel of Portugal to seek his support for a westward voyage to the Spice Islands. The king refused his petition repeatedly. In 1517, a frustrated Magellan renounced his Portuguese nationality and relocated to Spain to seek royal support for his venture.

When Magellan arrived in Seville in October 1517, he had no connections and spoke little Spanish. He soon met another transplanted Portuguese named Diogo Barbosa, and within a year he had married Barbosa’s daughter Beatriz, who gave birth to their son Rodrigo a year later. The well-connected Barbosa family introduced Magellan to officers responsible for Spain’s maritime exploration, and soon Magellan secured an appointment to meet the king of Spain.

The grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had funded Christopher Columbus ’s expedition to the New World in 1492, received Magellan’s petition with the same favor shown by his grandparents. Just 18 years old at the time, King Charles I granted his support to Magellan, who in turn promised the young king that his westward sea voyage would bring immeasurable riches to Spain.

Strait of Magellan

On August 10, 1519 Magellan bade farewell to his wife and young son, neither of whom he would ever see again, and the Armada De Moluccas set sail. Magellan commanded the lead ship Trinidad and was accompanied by four other ships: the San Antonio , the Conception , the Victoria and the Santiago . The expedition would prove long and arduous, and only one ship, the Victoria , would return three years later across the Pacific, carrying a mere 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270.

In September 1519 Magellan’s fleet sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean, which was then known simply as the Ocean Sea. The fleet reached South America a little more than one month later. There the ships sailed southward, hugging the coast in search of the fabled strait that would allow passage through South America. The fleet stopped at Port San Julian where the crew mutinied on Easter Day in 1520. Magellan quickly quelled the uprising, executing one of the captains and leaving another mutinous captain behind. Meanwhile Magellan had sent the Santiago to explore the route ahead, where it was shipwrecked during a terrible storm. The ship’s crew members were rescued and assigned out among the remaining ships. With those disastrous events behind them, the fleet left Port San Julian five months later when fierce seasonal storms abated.

On October 21, 1520 Magellan finally entered the strait that he had been seeking and that came to bear his name. The voyage through the Strait of Magellan was treacherous and cold, and many sailors continued to mistrust their leader and grumble about the dangers of the journey ahead. 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. At this point, only three of the original five ships remained in Magellan’s fleet.

The Magellan Expedition: Circumnavigation the Glob e

After more than a month spent traversing the strait, Magellan’s remaining armada emerged in November 1520 to behold a vast ocean before them. 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. The days dragged on as Magellan’s crew anxiously waited to utter the magic words “Land, ho!” At last, the fleet reached the Pacific island of Guam in March 1521, where they finally replenished their food stores.

Magellan’s fleet then sailed on to the Philippine archipelago landing on the island of Cebu, where Magellan befriended the locals and, struck with a sudden religious zeal, sought to convert them to Christianity . 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, 1521.

Magellan would never make it to the Spice Islands, but after the loss of yet another of his fleet’s vessels, the two remaining ships finally reached the Moluccas on November 5, 1521. In the end, only the Victoria completed the voyage around the world and arrived back in Seville, Spain, in September 1522 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.

Impact of Ferdinand Magellan

Seeking riches and personal glory, Magellan’s daring and ambitious voyage around the world provided the Europeans with far more than just spices. 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. Nevertheless, European geographic knowledge was expanded immeasurably by Magellan’s expedition. He found not only a massive ocean, hitherto unknown to Europeans, but he also discovered that the earth was much larger than previously thought. Finally, although it was no longer believed that the earth was flat at this stage in history, Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe empirically discredited the medieval theory conclusively.

Though Magellan is often credited with the first circumnavigation of the globe, he did so on a technicality: He first made a trip from Europe to present-day Malaysia, eastward via the Indian Ocean, and may have continued further east to the Spice Islands. He 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 enslaved servant Enrique was born in the region, possibly near Malacca or Cebu, and had come to Europe with Magellan by ship. Enrique reached Cebu (and possibly Mallaca) on the expedition’s westward voyage, meaning he may have been the first person to circumnavigate the world in one direction to return to the same starting point.

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Discovering the World: Interactive Map of Magellan's Route

Embark on an extraordinary historical journey as we delve into Magellan’s route around the world.

In 1519, a Portugese-Spanish explorer named Ferdinand Magellan, with the support of the 18-year-old King Charles of Spain, planned and organized a voyage around the world. The purpose of the trip was to find a western route to the Spice Islands (Moluccas).

Magellan’s successful voyage was to become the first circumnavigation of the world. Given the significance of this, students of history and cartography should look to the map of Magellan’s journey so they can trace the route and understand how he accomplished this feat in the Age of Exploration.

The Journey Begins: From Seville, Spain, to the Cape Verde Islands

Having first secured funding for the journey from the Spanish king, Magellan organized the fleet. It consisted of five ships: the Trinidad, the San Antonio, the Concepción, the Santiago, and the Victoria. These ships were loaded with food and supplies, including wine, hardtack, salted meat, flour, and other provisions.

Gathering his crew of around 270 men, Magellan set sail from Seville, Spain, on August 10 , 1519.

Edging Along the Coast of Africa: Canary Islands

After five weeks of remaining at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, Magellan’s fleet left Spain, and they wouldn’t return for three years. Six days later, on September 26, 1519, Magellan made a stop at the Canary Islands. Here, they stocked up on more supplies, including vegetables and pitch.

It was also during their stay here that Magellan received a secret letter from his father-in-law, warning him that some of his ships’ captains were planning a mutiny and that the King of Portugal was coming to arrest him.

Last Stop Before the Crossing: Cape Verde Islands

On October 3, 1519, the fleet departed the Canary Islands. In a strange decision, Magellan chose to edge along the African coast rather than take a westerly bearing. He did this in an attempt to escape the Portuguese ships, which were coming to arrest him. The fleet then made a brief stop at the Cape Verde Islands, just south of the Canary Islands, to gather more supplies and make repairs.

From here, Magellan took a south-west course across the Atlantic. In late October, the fleet was near the equator, where they experienced several intense storms, and saw St. Elmo’s fire, a rare phenomenon where a blazing blue light appears atop a ship’s mast during a lightning storm.

Land Ahoy!: South America

Arrival on the other side of the world: rio de janeiro, brazil.

Finally, on November 29, 1519, Magellan’s fleet made it across the Atlantic. By December 13, they had entered the bay of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Magellan and his crew spent thirteen days in Rio, where they restocked supplies, repaired their ships, and exchanged goods with the locals. On December 27, they left Rio, with many of the natives following in canoes, trying to get them to stay.

Explorations: Río de la Plata, Argentina

Heading south along the coast, the fleet arrived in the Río de la Plata region. In this area, which includes present-day Argentina and Uruguay, they spent days exploring and attempting to find a strait that would allow them to pass through South America to the Pacific Ocean. Having failed to find a strait, they continued to search for one to the south.

Navigating Treacherous Waters: Patagonia, Argentina

On February 3, 1519, the fleet continued south through the treacherous waters of Patagonia, where they encountered harsh weather conditions, including squalls and dropping temperatures, and challenging terrain. Magellan’s decision to stay near the coast also meant the fleet risked hitting shoals. Stopping briefly in Patagonia, Magellan claimed to have found giants living there.

Set Our Course South-Southwest: Tierra del Fuego, Chile/Argentina

With winter setting in, Magellan decided to settle the fleet at Puerto San Julián in Argentina. They stayed here for five months before continuing the journey. During the winter, Magellan had to put down an attempted mutiny. Also, on a scouting expedition in May 1520, one of their ships, the Santiago, was wrecked in a storm.

After spending six weeks in Santa Cruz, the fleet finally resumed the journey south on October 18, 1520, and reached the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, which is shared by Chile and Argentina.

Connecting the Oceans: The Strait of Magellan

On October 21, Magellan’s fleet arrived at what is now called the Strait of Magellan. The fleet successfully navigated through it from late October through November 1520. During the crossing, the ships split up to explore different paths, but when they regrouped a few days later, the San Antonio was not there, and it was later discovered that it had deserted and returned to Spain.

Now, with three ships left, Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean, which he named because of its seemingly still waters, on November 28.

How West Becomes East: From the Pacific Islands to Indonesia

After crossing into the Pacific Ocean, Magellan and his fleet set sail on a west-north-west course. They encountered several islands, including two small ones, Guam, the Marianas, the Palau Islands, and the Philippines.

New Friendships: Cebu, Philippines

On April 7, 1521, the fleet arrived in Cebu, where they established friendly relations with the local ruler, Rajah Humabon.

The Captain is Dead!: Mactan Island, Philippines

Continuing through the Philippines, Magellan and his three ships came to Mactan Island. When native inhabitants led by Lapu-Lapu resisted religious conversion, Magellan brought 60 armed men to oppose them. The battle was given, and Magellan was killed in the skirmish. With only 115 men remaining, it was decided the fleet could no longer operate three ships, so they scuttled the Concepción on May 2, 1521.

Continuing On: Tidore, Ternate, and the Maluku Islands, Indonesia

Setting sail again, the ships reached the islands of Tidore and Ternate in the Moluccas around November 8. After establishing friendly relations with the leader of Tidore, the crew was able to purchase large quantities of valuable spices and provisions. They also explored various islands within the Maluku Islands archipelago, including Ambon, Banda, and the Kai Islands.

A few days later, they intended to depart, but the Trinidad needed repairs, so it stayed behind for a few weeks. When the Trinidad tried to continue to Spain, it was captured by the Portuguese and wrecked in a storm, leaving the fleet with only the Victoria.

One Last Effort: For South Africa and Home

Rounding the cape without magellan: cape of good hope, south africa.

On May 6, 1522, the last remaining ship of the fleet, the Victoria, rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, facing treacherous winds, challenging sailing conditions, and possessing only rice for rations.

Coming Back: Cape Verde Islands

Heading north up the African coast and passing by the remote island of Saint Helena, on July 10, 1522, the Victoria stopped at the Cape Verde Islands for sorely needed supplies and repairs before continuing to Spain.

The Victorious Victoria Returns Home: Sanlùcar de Barrameda, Spain

After almost exactly three years, on September 6, 1522, the Magellan expedition’s last-remaining ship, the Victoria, with only 18 men remaining, returned to the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain. This marked the first circumnavigation of the globe in history.

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Dire straits: the story of Ferdinand Magellan's fatal voyage of discovery

The renegade Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan masterminded a Spanish expedition that completed the first circuit of Earth, although it cost him his life. Writing for BBC History Revealed , Pat Kinsella tells the story and timeline of a triumph beset by mutiny, malnutrition and disaster

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If all had gone to plan during Ferdinand Magellan’s life-defining expedition, almost no one would know his name now. As it happened, everything went disastrously wrong for the Portuguese sea captain, yet he has gone down in history as the first explorer to circumnavigate the planet, even though he died in the middle of the journey.

Magellan did, however, become the first European to lead a voyage into the Pacific Ocean – although future sailors would regularly raise alarmed eyebrows at the name he bequeathed to it. The expedition he led (or at least one of the five ships that set out from Spain in 1519) performed the first known complete loop of the globe.

Although Magellan could never have predicted the extraordinary events that would follow, perhaps the thought of reputational immortality would have provided the 41-year-old with a crumb of comfort on 27 April 1521, as he floundered in the shallows of a beach on the island of Mactan in the Philippines, mortally injured and weighed down by his armour. He had been identified as the leader of the invading alien force by the enraged warriors of island chief Lapu-Lapu, and was about to suffer a pointless and wholly avoidable death after his ill-advised show of military might spectacularly backfired.

• A voyage from hell: how Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world changed history

Magellan’s final moments were frenzied and violent. But if he hadn’t made the fateful decision to lead a small force against a defending army of 1,500 battle-ready men, then perhaps he wouldn’t have been remembered as one of the greatest explorers of his era.

Who was Ferdinand Magellan?

Born into an aristocratic Portuguese family in 1480, Ferdinand Magellan was orphaned as a young boy and at the age of 12 he entered the royal court in Lisbon as a page of Eleanor of Viseu, consort of King John II. Thirteen years later, he enlisted in the fleet of the Portuguese viceroy to the Indies and spent seven years learning the ropes of his future career during action-packed voyages in Asia and Africa.

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Magellan was part of the invading force that saw Portugal secure control of the region’s most important trading routes when it conquered Malacca on the Malay Peninsula in 1511, and he may have ventured as far east as the Moluccas (Spice Islands) of modern-day Indonesia. During these adventures he bought a Malay-speaking man, Enrique de Malacca, to be his slave, interpreter and companion – and he remained so on all Magellan’s later voyages.

By 1512, Magellan was back in Lisbon with a promising-looking career ahead of him. He soon joined the huge expeditionary force of 500 ships and 15,000 soldiers that John II’s successor, King Manuel I, sent to punish the governor of Morocco for failing to pay his tribute to the Portuguese crown in 1513. It was during a skirmish that he sustained an injury that left him with a lifelong limp. But he was then accused of illegal trading with the Moors, which saw him fall from favour.

A dedicated student of maps and charts, consumed with an urge to explore, Magellan had hatched a plan to pioneer a westward route to the Spice Islands, avoiding the perilous route around the Cape of Good Hope. However, the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas and the expeditions and achievements of explorers such as Vasco da Gama had already granted Portugal full control of the eastwards route around southern Africa, and Manuel was disinterested in Magellan’s ideas.

Great reputations

Listen to all episodes now.

This snub left the ambitious and capable captain dangerously disaffected – a blessing for the Spanish, who were desperately seeking an alternative way of accessing the riches of India and the Far East. In 1517, Magellan decamped to Seville in Spain, where he quickly married the daughter of another Portuguese exile, had two children and began bending the ear of Charles I about a western route to the Spice Islands.

The 18-year-old Spanish king – grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had commissioned the adventures of Columbus – was desperate to make his mark and smash the dominance his Iberian rivals had over the enormously lucrative spice trade. He seized the potential opportunity to bypass Africa, while avoiding breaking the terms of the treaty with the powerful Portuguese, and commissioned Magellan to undertake the expeditionary mission he had been itching to pursue.

Of course, Magellan wasn’t the first European explorer to sail west in search of a backdoor route to the treasures of the Orient. Columbus had ventured that way across the Atlantic looking for the East Indies in 1492, before bumping into the Bahamas instead, while John Cabot (aka Giovanni Caboto), a Venetian captain commissioned by Henry VII of England, had sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497.

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Unlike Columbus – who made a further three journeys across the western ocean, but died in denial that he was actually exploring a totally new continent – the Spanish soon realised this was a different land mass (the Americas). While this revelation would ultimately return riches beyond their wildest dreams in terms of gold, Magellan’s focus was on how to get past this ‘New World’ in order to reach the Spice Islands beyond.

No European had sailed around Cape Horn – or indeed even laid eyes on it – but a Spanish adventurer named Vasco Núñez de Balboa had discovered the ocean beyond the New World in 1513, by traversing the Isthmus of Panama. Magellan, a visionary who was working with the most advanced cartographers and cosmographers of the era, was convinced there was a way of getting around the Americas.

Westward ho

In September 1519, Magellan led five vessels, manned by a multinational, 270-strong crew, into the Atlantic – his flagship the Trinidad, plus the Santiago , San Antonio , Concepción and Victoria . Word of his mission reached Manuel I, who jealously dispatched a Portuguese naval detachment to follow the expedition, but Magellan outran them.

But he couldn’t escape all his enemies so easily, especially as some were among his own men. Many of the Spanish sailors in the expeditionary party were suspicious of their Portuguese commander. Some of his crew were criminals released from prison in return for undertaking the dangerous voyage. Others joined just because they were avoiding creditors.

Many of the Spanish sailors were suspicious of their commander

The fleet was hit by a storm, which caused a delay and resulted in food rationing. Here, Juan de Cartagena – who had been appointed captain of the largest ship, the San Antonio , because of his good connections, despite being green in the business of exploration and an inexperienced seaman – began openly criticising Magellan’s competence and refusing to salute his captain-general. Magellan had Cartagena arrested, relieved of his command and imprisoned in the brig of the Victoria until they reached South America. The incident was a precursor to the much more dramatic and bloody events to come.

In December, the expedition reached South America and made landfall in Rio de Janeiro. For two weeks they interacted with indigenous people, trading trinkets for food and sexual favours, before the fleet sailed south, scouring the coastline in search of an opening. They spent fruitless weeks exploring the estuary of Río de la Plata for this elusive passage, before freezing conditions forced the party to seek shelter for the winter in Port St Julian in Patagonia.

Timeline: Ferdinand Magellan's voyage

Ten landmark moments in magellan’s voyage into the unknown, as plotted out on a 1544 copy of the agnese atlas, produced by the italian mapmaker battista agnese.

Morale was already plummeting when, in April 1520, Cartagena made his move. He escaped Victoria , reboarded the San Antonio , and begun fermenting trouble and securing support from the Spanish crew and officers, playing on bad blood about Magellan’s Portuguese nationality.

In the mutiny that followed, the San Antonio was declared independent of Magellan’s command. The captains of the Concepción and the Victoria (Gaspar de Quesada and Luiz Mendoza) joined them, as did the Victoria ’s pilot Juan Sebastián Elcano, and many of the officers and crew. A letter was sent to Magellan on the Trinidad, demanding he acknowledge that the fleet was no longer under his command.

Magellan sent his reply in the hands of an assassin

Magellan coolly sent his reply back in the hands of an assassin. After coming alongside the Victoria in a small boat, while pretending to hand over the letter to Mendoza, the man fatally stabbed the errant captain instead. Simultaneously, crew loyal to Magellan stormed aboard the ship and attacked the mutineers, who were overcome.

The rebels maintained control of the San Antonio and Concepción , with Cartagena having boarded the latter prior to the fighting breaking out. Magellan positioned the three ships he had at his disposal across the mouth of the bay, and prepared for combat.

During the night, heavy winds caused San Antonio to drag its anchor and drift towards the Trinidad. Magellan met the oncoming ship with a cannon broadside, causing the mutineers aboard the stricken carrack to surrender. Conceding defeat, Cartagena followed suit and gave up the Concepción without resistance the following morning.

Having quelled the revolt, Magellan immediately sentenced 30 men to death, but then (mindful of his threadbare resources) commuted their punishment to hard labour. The leaders of the mutiny weren’t so lucky. Quesada was beheaded for treason, and both his body and that of Mendoza’s were mutilated and put on sticks. Too fearful of Cartagena’s connections to order him executed, Magellan instead left him marooned with Padre Sánchez de la Reina, a priest who’d supported the mutineers. They were never heard of again.

The real deal

Back on course.

In July, Magellan dispatched the Santiago to scout ahead for the elusive passage. She discovered the Rio de Santa Cruz in what is now Argentina, but sank in a storm while trying to make the return journey. Remarkably, the crew survived, and two men trekked overland for 11 days to alert Magellan, who mounted a rescue mission.

In October, the entire fleet set off, and Magellan at last sighted the strait that now bears his name, a route between the tip of mainland South America and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. However, conditions continued to be rough, and when the fleet split to explore either side of an island, the crew of the San Antonio forced their captain to desert and return to Spain (where they spread scurrilous rumours about Magellan’s brutality to avoid punishment).

While the main fleet waited in vain for the San Antonio , Gonzalo de Espinosa led an advance party along the strait, returning after six days with news that made Magellan weep with joy: they’d sighted open ocean. On 28 November, the expedition emerged into an ocean that seemed so relatively benign on the day, Magellan named it Mar Pacifico, or Peaceful Sea.

The true nature and enormity of the Pacific was soon revealed to the explorer, however. !e fleet left the coast of Chile to sail across the new-found ocean, a journey Magellan expected to last four days, but which took almost four months. The fleet was woefully underprepared and the sailors savaged by scurvy and thirst, many dying.

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Magellan crossed the equator in February 1521 and reached the Pacific island of Guam in March, where the fleet replenished its exhausted supplies. Not long afterwards they finally arrived at the Philippine archipelago. This, though, was just the beginning of Magellan’s real troubles; his erstwhile planning and leadership came dramatically undone when he needlessly embroiled himself in a dispute between two local chiefs.

In the Philippines, Magellan communicated with local rajahs through his Malay slave, Enrique. At the evangelical explorer’s behest, a number of island chiefs – including Cebu’s Rajah Humabon – converted to Christianity.

In return for his soul, however, Humabon sought Magellan’s support in a disagreement with a neighbour, Lapu- Lapu, a chief on Mactan Island, who had already irked the explorer by declining to convert or bow to the Spanish crown.

On 27 April 1521, 60 heavily armed Europeans accompanied a fleet of Filipino boats to Mactan, where Lapu- Lapu again refused to recognise the authority of Humabon or the Spanish. Facing 1,500 warriors, Magellan – confident in the shock-and-awe capability of his superior weaponry, which included guns, crossbows, swords and axes – instructed Humabon to hang back, while he waded ashore with an attack party of 49 men.

They torched several houses in an attempt to scare the islanders, but this only served to whip Lapu-Lapu’s warriors into a battle rage. In the resulting beachfront mêlée, where the Europeans were weighed down by their armour, Magellan was identified and injured by a bamboo spear thrust. Felled, he was then surrounded and killed, along with several others. With their captain dead, the survivors retreated to the boats.

After the battle, when the Europeans refused to release Enrique (despite Magellan’s orders to do so in the event of his death), Humabon turned against the Spanish. Several were poisoned during a feast, including Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão, who had assumed leadership of the expedition following the demise of Magellan.

Rounding the circle

João Carvalho took command of the fleet and ordered an immediate departure. By this time, however, too few men remained to crew the three ships. The Concepción was burnt, and the two remaining vessels made for Brunei, indulging in a spot of piracy en route, and attacking a junk bound for China. Espinosa then replaced Carvalho as leader, as well as being captain of the Trinidad , while Elcano was made the captain of the Victoria .

In November, the expedition finally reached the Spice Islands and managed to trade with the Sultan of Tidore. Loaded with cloves, they attempted to return home by sailing west across the Indian Ocean – which had never been Magellan’s intention – until the Trinidad started leaking. The wounded ship stopped for repairs, and eventually tried to return via the Pacific, but was captured by the Portuguese and subsequently sank.

Meanwhile, under the captaincy of Elcano, the Victoria continued across the Indian Ocean, eventually limping around the Cape of Good Hope in May. Tragically, 20 men starved on the last leg along the Atlantic coast of Africa, and another 13 were abandoned on Cape Verde – Elcano had put into port to resupply, but the Portuguese there caught on that they were part of a Spanish expedition; fearing for his cargo, Elcano fled.

On 6 September 1522, after three years’ absence, Victoria arrived in Spain, becoming the first ship to have sailed around the planet. Only 18 of Magellan’s original 270-man crew arrived with her. Though ultimately successful in finding a western passage that opened up the Pacific and the west coast of the Americas, the Strait of Magellan proved too far south to be a viable trade route to the Orient, which intensified the search for the elusive Northwest Passage from the mid-16th century.

Although Magellan didn’t make it home, he did complete a full circumnavigation of the globe (Philippines to Philippines, albeit in two chunks separated by several years), a feat probably matched by his Malaysian slave Enrique. But the first European to definitively do so in a single voyage was the man who captained Victoria on her final leg – the mutineer Elcano.

Drake's fortune

Pat Kinsella specialises in adventure journalism as a writer, photographer and editor

This article was first published in the September 2019 issue of BBC History Revealed

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Moscow Mathematical Journal

Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October–December 2012

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Chern Classes of Graph Hypersurfaces and Deletion-Contraction Relations Paolo Aluffi Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 671–700 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

A Remark on a Question of Beauville about Lagrangian Fibrations Ekaterina Amerik Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 701–704 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

On Products of Skew Rotations M.D. Arnold, E.I. Dinaburg, G.B. Dobrushina, S.A. Pirogov, and A.N. Rybko Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 705–717 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

Random Young Diagrams in a Rectangular Box Dan Beltoft, Cédric Boutillier, and Nathanaël Enriquez Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 719–745 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

Thurston Equivalence to a Rational Map is Decidable Sylvain Bonnot, Mark Braverman, and Michael Yampolsky Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 747–763 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

Riemannian Spin holonomy manifold carries octonionic-Kähler structure Dmitry V. Egorov Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 765–769 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

The Integral Homology Ring of the Based Loop Space on some Generalised Symmetric Spaces Jelena Grbić and Svjetlana Terzić Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 771–786 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

Maximal Specht Varieties of Monoids Edmond W. H. Lee Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 787–802 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

On Topologies on Malcev Completions of Braid Groups Yury Neretin Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 803–824 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

Thom's Problem for Degenerate Singular Points of Holomorphic Foliations in the Plane L. Ortiz-Bobadilla, E. Rosales-González, and S. Voronin Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 825–862 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

A Note on Formality and Singularities of Moduli Spaces Ziyu Zhang Moscow Mathematical Journal pp. 863–879 Abstract, references and article information Retrieve article in:   Full-Text PDF

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Rusmania • Deep into Russia

Day trip to Suzdal from Moscow: transport, sights, maps and tips

 DAY TRIP TO SUZDAL

  Suzdal is one of the most popular destinations on the Golden Ring and the whole city is often described as an open-air museum.  The city has no railway station and practically no heavy industry, meaning that is has preserved its provincial charm and a great deal of architectural monuments.

  From Moscow, Suzdal is not as easy to get to as Sergiev Posad (the closest Golden Ring city to the capital) but it is worth going the extra distance as Suzdal provides more of a contrast from Moscow.  If you make use of high-speed trains it is possible and not too demanding to visit for even just a day, but of course spending the night there is recommended to soak in the atmosphere or to combine it with a visit to neighbouring Vladimir.  As the city is a very popular tourist destination you will have no problem finding a cafe or guesthouse there.  There is practically no public transport in the city, but the city is small and most sights are located relatively close to each other.

Getting There and Back

Via Vladimir

Direct to Suzdal

  Buses directly to Suzdal leave from Moscow’s Schyolkovsky Bus Station.  There are about 9 buses a day and it takes around 4½ hours depending on traffic.  The buses stop at Vladimir too.  Using this option will mean a rather exhausting day trip.

Orientation and Main Sights

  Suzdal is a relatively small city and it is not difficult to walk around the city to see most of the sights.  

  The main road in the city is Ulitsa Lenina which runs north across the whole city.  

  The main sights of Suzdal are located either on or just off this road, including the two main sights: the Suzdal Kremlin in the south and the Spaso-Yevfimiev Monastery in the north.

  More information about Suzdal can be found on our Suzdal  pages.

  Suzdal is famous for its medovukha (mead) which is an alcoholic drink made out of honey.  It can be drunk either hot or cold, meaning it perfect in both summer and winter, and you will find it on practically every menu in the city.  There are various flavours of the drink available and even a non-alcoholic version.  In addition to medovukha, you can find all traditional Russian souvenirs in the city and there is a big souvenir market on Torgovaya Ploschad.

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