Ferdinand Magellan: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer best known for planning and leading the 1519–1522 Spanish expedition to the East Indies. During this expedition, he discovered the Strait of Magellan, performed the first European crossing of the Pacific Ocean, and made the first known European contact with the Philippines. Magellan himself was killed in battle in the Philippines in 1521, but his crew, commanded by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, completed the return trip to Spain in 1522, achieving the first circumnavigation of Earth in history.

Born around 1480 into a family of minor Portuguese nobility, Magellan became a skilled sailor and naval officer in the service of the Portuguese Crown in Asia. However, King Manuel I refused to support Magellan's plan to reach the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, by sailing westwards around the American continent. Magellan then proposed the same plan to King Charles I of Spain, who approved it. In Seville, he married, fathered two children, and organized the expedition. In 1518, for his allegiance to the Hispanic monarchy, Magellan was appointed an admiral of the Spanish fleet and given command of the expedition—the five-ship "Armada of Molucca". He also was made a Commander of the Order of Santiago, one of the highest military ranks of the Spanish Empire.

Granted special powers and privileges by the king, he led the Armada from Sanlúcar de Barrameda southwest across the Atlantic Ocean, to the eastern coast of South America, and south to Patagonia. Despite a series of storms and mutinies, the expedition successfully passed through the Strait of Magellan into the Mar del Sur, which Magellan renamed the Mar Pacifico, or Pacific Ocean. The expedition landed at Guam after an arduous crossing of the Pacific, and then reached the Philippines. There, on 27 April 1521, Magellan died in the Battle of Mactan after being shot in the neck with a poison arrow. Under the command of Captain Juan Sebastián Elcano, the expedition finally reached the Spice Islands. The fleet's two remaining ships then parted ways, one attempting, unsuccessfully, to reach New Spain by sailing east across the Pacific. The other ship, commanded by Elcano, sailed west across the Indian Ocean and north along the Atlantic coast of Africa, finally returning to Spain in September 1522.

While in the Kingdom of Portugal's service, Magellan had already reached the Malay Archipelago in Southeast Asia on previous voyages traveling east (from 1505 to 1511–1512). By visiting this area again but now traveling west, Magellan achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of the globe for the first time in history.