Why do we study ferdinand magellan

Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Henry the Navigator, a 15th century Portuguese prince, helped usher in both the Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade. He was married to Marie Antoinette and was executed for treason by guillotine in Henry IV granted religious freedom to Protestants by issuing the Edict of Nantes during his reign as king of France, from to She was also a staunch advocate for women's rights.

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. He was the first person to sail directly from Europe to India.

While in the service of Spain, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan led the first European voyage of discovery to circumnavigate the globe. Olivia Rodrigo —. Megan Thee Stallion —. Bowen Yang —.

See More. As a page to queen consort Eleanor and Manuel I, he experienced court life in Lisbon. But the young man had a sense of adventure, and took part in a string of Portuguese voyages designed to discover and seize lucrative spice routes in Africa and India. At the time, Portugal and Spain were involved in an intense rivalry to see who could find and claim new territory where they could source the spices coveted by European aristocrats. In , Magellan joined the fight, traveling to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

But his days in service to Portugal were numbered: He was accused of illegal trading and fell out with Manuel I, who turned down his proposal to locate a new spice route. Magellan was convinced that by sailing west instead of east and going through a rumored strait through South America, he could map a new route to Indonesia and India.

The captain stood to gain great wealth and status from the trip: Charles gave him a decade-long monopoly on any route he might discover, a cut of the profits, and a noble title to boot. But he was in an awkward position when it came to his majority-Spanish crew and his royal mission.

One ship wrecked; another ditched the expedition altogether and headed back to Spain. The captain struggled to regain control of his men, but once he did, the repercussions were swift and harsh. He ordered some of the mutineers beheaded and quartered; others were marooned or forced into hard labor. As the crew forged across the Pacific Ocean, food spoiled and scurvy and starvation struck.

Magellan and his men briefly made landfall in what was likely Guam , where they killed indigenous people and burned their homes in response to the theft of a small boat. A month later, the expedition reached the Philippines. It turned out he was likely raised there before his enslavement—making him, not Magellan, the first person to circumnavigate the globe. Instead, he demanded that local Mactan people convert to Christianity and became embroiled in a rivalry between Humabon and Lapu-Lapu, two local chieftains.

They returned to Spain in September Ferdinand Magellan set off from Spain years ago on an epoch-making voyage to sail all the way around the globe for the first time. The Portuguese explorer was killed by islanders in the Philippines two years into the adventure, leaving Spaniard Juan Sebastian Elcano to complete the three-year trip. But it is Magellan's name that is forever associated with the voyage. Here are five ways in which Magellan's voyage marked human history and continues to inspire scientists and explorers today.

Magellan's voyage was a turning point in history, as unique as the first manned journey into outer space and the later moon landings, said NASA scientist Alan Stern, leader of its New Horizons interplanetary space probe. I would call it the first planetary event, in the same way that Yuri Gagarin was the first off-planetary event" when the Soviet cosmonaut went into outer space.

Magellan's voyage rewrote the maps and geography books. He was the first to discover the strait, which now bears his name, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the tip of South America. By now one of his ships had deserted, but the other four started the journey across their new-found sea. To everyone's amazement, the crossing was to take three months and 20 days.

Magellan and his men suffered terrible hunger on the voyage. They ran out of fresh food and many died of scurvy. No: he was killed in a fight with islanders in the Philippines. In fact, the first person to sail around the world was a Malaysian, who had come back to Europe with Magellan many years before and then went as an interpreter on his later voyage. The first European to complete the circumnavigation was Magellan's second-in-command, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who took over after his death.