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Ferdinand Magellan 1480 - 1521
LINK TO INSIGHT PAGE ON THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
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Ferdinand Magellan, Artist Unknown, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
The account of the 1519 - 1522 circumnavigation by the Italian Antonio Pigafetta, one of the 18 men who returned out of the 270 who had set out. |
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Magellan was a Portuguese courtier turned navigator who transferred his services to Spain. In 1519 he set sail from Seville across the Atlantic with five ships and over 270 men in search of the Spice Islands. They sailed past the interestingly named "Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins" and through what was to become known as the Magellan Strait at the southerly tip of South America, crossed an ocean he named "the Pacific" because it was, and landed in the Philippines, where our man was killed in a scuffle with the natives. One ship and 18 men made it back to Spain in 1522.
Magellan is credited with circumnavigating the world because he had earlier (1501-12) made it to the Spice Islands via the Cape of Good Hope.
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Links to Paradoxplace Book pages
Stories by and about Travellers in the Middle Ages
Books about Exploration and Mapmaking
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For other Paradoxplace links visit the home page ...
All original material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-10 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission |
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