Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan commanded the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe and was killed less than halfway round. Born in northern Portugal around 1480 into minor nobility, he served as a page at court and sailed east with Almeida's fleet in 1505, spending some seven years in India and Malacca and fighting at Diu and at the capture of Malacca in 1511. He was wounded in Morocco, accused of trading illegally with the enemy, and refused further employment by Manuel I, who also refused him a trivial increase in his pension. He renounced his nationality and offered himself to Spain. His argument was that the Moluccas — the spice islands — lay in the Spanish half of the world under the Treaty of Tordesillas, and could be reached by sailing west. Charles I gave him five ships and about 270 men in 1519. He suppressed a mutiny by three of his captains at Puerto San Julián, executing one and marooning others, and lost a ship on the coast. In October 1520 he found the strait at the southern tip of the continent, 570 kilometres of channels that took thirty-eight days to navigate; one ship deserted and sailed home. The Pacific crossing took three months and twenty days on rotten biscuit, rat meat and leather, with scurvy killing about thirty men. He named the ocean for its calm. He reached the Philippines in March 1521, and in April intervened in a local dispute at Mactan and was killed in the shallows by Lapulapu's warriors. Elcano brought one ship home in 1522.
- Lived: 1480 CE – 1521 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: navigator, explorer, admiral
