Ferdinand Magellan
1480-1521
First Europen to cross the Pacific and navigate the globe
Ferdinand was born in 1480 in northern Portugal. At age 12 he was sent to become a page to Queen Leonor, wife of King Joao II, where he completed his education. In 1505 he went on an expediton as a soldier, with Francisco de Almeida, to India.
On September 11, 1509 Magellan sailed as an officer under Diogo Lopes Sequeira, where they anchored off Malacca to trade with the Malays ruling sultan. One of the fleets captains, Garcia de Sousa, sensed a trap and sent Magellan to warn Sequeira. Magellan warned his captain and fought his way to shore to rescue 40 men from the surprise attack, where the rest of their comrades were not so lucky.
In 1512 he returned to Portugal. He was stationed in Morocco in 1513 where he received wounds that left him lame for life. After his request for an increase in allowance, from Emanuel the King of Portugal, was refused, he renounced his Portugese citizenship and offered his services to Spain.
In Spain, Magellan went on an expediton "to reach Moluccas by sailing west" for King Charles I. He knew there was an ocean beyond the Americas because six years earlier Vasco Nunew De Balboa had crossed the Ismus of Panama and saw the great sea. See Balboa On September 20, 1519 he sailed with five ships to South America. Here at Port San Julia, he put into port on February 1520 for five months to wait out the South Ameican winter. On November 28, 1520, after loosing two ships he sailed into a calm ocean which he named the " Pacific". The passage to the Pacific is now named the Strait of Magellan.
In 1521 he sighted the Phillipines landing on Cebu on April 7th. On Cebu, Magellan made an alliance with a chief named Zula to help against his rival "Lapulapu", on the island of Mactan. On April 27, 1520 they arrived on Mactan, where they were attacked by Lapulapu's 1500 warriors. Magellan ordered his men to withdraw and the warriors seeing that Magellan was the leader concentrated their attack on him and he was killed. One of the vessels of the fleet was burned, but two reached Moluccas on Novemer 6, 1521. One of the vessels, the Victoria, commanded by Sebastian del Cano, completed the the journey home to Spain, arriving home on September 6, 1522.
