This account was posted on Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac.”
It was on this date in 1519 that the explorer Ferdinand Magellan set off to sail around the world. Although he was Portuguese, Magellan had sworn allegiance to Spain, and he began the journey with a fleet of five ships and 270 men to see if he could accomplish what Columbus had failed to: find a navigable route to Asia that didn’t involve going around Africa. They set sail from Seville, heading west. After crossing the Atlantic, surviving a mutiny, and losing one ship, Magellan reached Brazil and turned south, following the coast until he came to a deep-water strait that separated the rest of South America from Tierra del Fuego. Magellan entered the strait on All Saints’ Day in 1520, so he christened it the Strait of All Saints. Later, the Spanish king changed its name to the Strait of Magellan. After sailing 373 miles in the strait, Magellan became the first European to enter the Pacific Ocean from the east, and he’s the one who named it “Pacific,” because it was much calmer than the Atlantic.
Unfortunately for Magellan, he never completed the voyage himself. The fleet stopped off in what are now the Philippine Islands, where Magellan befriended a local chief and offered to help him in his war with the natives on a neighboring island. Magellan was killed in battle in April 1521, and the remaining fleet continued on without him. They arrived back in Seville — down to one ship and 18 men — on September 8, 1522.
Diane: I remember this when Keillor posted it before. Magellan was not the first European to discover, nor was he the first European to sail in this. This happened 7 years before in 1513 when Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in September of that year. Magellan may have named it Pacific Ocean, but he was not the first European to encounter the South Sea as it was called. However, Magellan’s expedition was the first to circumnavigate the world and show that it was possible.
Thank you, Mike.
Sounds like the Trump journey, and, May end the same way