Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan, Ferdinand 

(Magalhães in Portuguese; Magallanes in Spanish). Born about 1480 in Tras-Os-Montes, Portugal; died Apr. 27, 1521, on Mactan Island in the Philippines. Navigator.

Magellan served in Portuguese expeditions between 1505 and 1512, twice reaching Malacca (1509 and 1511). Returning to Lisbon, he worked out a plan to reach the Moluccas by sailing westward, but it was rejected by the Portuguese king. In 1517 he went to Spain and proposed the plan to the Spanish king, who appointed him head of an expedition. On Sept. 20, 1519, he left the Spanish harbor of Sanlúcar de Barrameda with five ships, in January 1520 reaching the Río de la Plata. Failing to find there a passage to the west, he sailed southward in February, following the coast of the unknown land that he named Patagonia for more than 2,000 km and discovering the large gulfs of San Matias and San Jorge. In March 1520 the flotilla reached the Bay of San Julian, where a mutiny broke out on three ships. Magellan quelled the mutiny and in August 1520, after wintering in the Bay of San Julian, sailed southward with his four remaining ships and discovered and explored the entry to the strait he was seeking, later named after him. He also discovered the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. In November 1520 he reached the ocean which his fellow voyagers later called the Pacific. Sailing more than 17,000 km without halting, in March 1521 he discovered, above 13°N lat., three islands of the Marianas (including Guam) and later the Philippines (Samar, Mindanao, and Cebu). Magellan made an alliance with the ruler of Cebu, gave him military support against the neighboring island of Mactan, and was killed in a battle with local inhabitants. Magellan’s voyage showed that a great ocean stretched between the Americas and Asia. Only one ship of the flotilla, the Victoria, commanded by del Cano, completed the first voyage around the world in 1522. Magellan’s expeditions established that the world was round and that there was a single world ocean.

REFERENCES

Pigafétta, A. Puteshestvie Magellana. Moscow, 1950. (Translated from Italian.)
Zweig, S. Podvig Magellana. Moscow, 1956. (Translated from German.)

I. P. MAGIDOVICH