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Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Porto, Portugal in 1480.
At the age of 10, Magellans parents died and he became a page for the queen. As a boy, he
studied mapmaking and navigation. In his mid-20s, he joined a Portuguese fleet that sailed to
East Africa. In 1509, Magellan found himself in the midst of the battle of Diu, in which the
Portuguese destroyed Egyptian ships in the Arabian Sea. Two years later, he explored Malacca,
which is located in present-day Malaysia. He sailed as far as the islands in Indonesia known as
The Moluccas, or The Spice Islands.
In 1513, while serving in Morocco, Magellan was wounded and walked with a limp for
the remainder of his life. He was also falsely accused of trading illegally with the Moors. Despite
his service and several pleas to the king, all further offers of employment were withheld. In 1517,
he moved to Seville, Spain to offer his skills to Spanish court. In the three years following his
departure from Portugal, he studied all of the most recent navigation charts religiously.
Along with the other navigators of the time, Magellan understood that the world was
round due to Greek texts. He believed that he could find a shorter route to the Spice Islands by
sailing west, across the Atlantic ocean, around South America, and across the Pacific. This idea
was not new, Christopher Columbus and Vasco Nunez de Balboa had already paved the way, but
this type of voyage would give Spain open access to the Spice Islands without the difficulty of
travelling through areas controlled by the Portuguese. On September 20, 1519, After King
Charles I of Spain approved his plan, Magellan set out with a fleet of five fully supplied ships,
but hardly adequate to sail the distances he intended. By October 1520, Magellan and his crew
had entered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan. It took over a month to pass through

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Ferdinand Magellan
the strait, during which time the captain of one of the ships left them and sailed back home. The
remaining ships sailed through the Pacific Ocean and eventually arrived in Guam in March 1521.
After finding their way to Homonhom Island on the edge of the Philippines with less than
150 of the 270 original men who started the voyage, the Spanish crew shortly became involved
in a war between the island king, Rajah Humabon, and another rival leader. Magellan was killed
in battle on April 27, 1521. The remaining crew escaped the Philippines and continued their
journey to the Spice Islands. They arrived in November, 1521.The Spanish commander of the
last ship, the Victoria, set sail in December and returned to Spain on September 8, 1522.

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Ferdinand Magellan
Works Cited
Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.
"Ferdinand Magellan." History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.