Ferdinand Magellan is very famous now, but have you ever considered why he is famous? It doesn’t matter if you haven’t because as soon as you have read this, you will know all about him.

 Above is a map of Magellan’s voyage. As you can see, he sailed from Portugal, the country of his birth, across to Brazil, which was accidentally discovered by Bartholomew Diaz. However, he was sailing on behalf of the Spanish king and queen and didn’t want to be captured by the Portuguese. So he sailed on down the East coast of South America. Unfortunately, bad weather forced him to land in Patagonia, Argentina, for the winter and one of his ships (the Santiago) was lost there. However, he still had 4 ships and a lot of men, even after the mutiny at Brazil. So he kept going, and when Spring came, they set of once again on the incredible journey. Eventually, they came to the Magellan Straits, the stretch of sea which leads to Tierra Del Fuego. This place got its name because as they sailed past it, the crew saw fires built by the natives, and so it got it’s name Tierra Del Fuego, the land of fire. Then, there was another discovery: the Pacific Ocean or, as Magellan called it, the Peaceful Ocean. Unfortunately, one of the ships (the San Antonio) ran off with half the food, and so they were down to half rations and 3 ships. By the time they reached the Philippians, they were fresh out of food. So they stopped there to get supplies and food. But, Magellan became involved in a quarrel between some native chiefs and was killed in a battle. They were also forced to abandon the Concepcion and so only two ships remained. But they split up. The Trinidad went east and was captured by the Portuguese, but the Vittoria went west and made it home to Spain, under the captainship of Sebastian del Cano with 1 ship and 18 out of 260 men!