FACTS ABOUT MAGELLAN

1. His parents died at age 10. Two years later he moved to Lisbon, Portugal to become a page to the queen.  He went to the page school and learned about cartography, astronomy, and navigation.
2. He first went to sea as a soldier. He fought for Portugal in Malaysia and Morocco.  In Morocco, he was wounded in the leg and limped the rest of his life.  He fell out of favor in Portugal, partly because of accusations of illegally trading with the Moors.  He moved to Spain and was considered a traitor in Portugal.  King Charles I of Spain sponsored his voyage with the promise of finding a new route west to the Spice Islands near Indonesia.  (Portugal had a monopoly on the route south around Africa.) There was a great demand for the cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg of the islands.  The King of Portugal retaliated for his treason by vandalizing Magellan’s family properties.  He sent several ships to intercept Magellan’s fleet.  They failed.
3. Magellan was given five ships: the flagship Victoria, Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepcion, Santiago.  Many of his men were convicts released from prison and debtors avoiding prison.  His crews included sailors from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Sicily, England, France, Germany, and North Africa.
4. Since Magellan was Portuguese, his Spanish sailors resented his leadership. There were two mutinies.  In the second one, three of the five ships joined in and it was put down with the three captains being drawn, quartered, and impaled.
5. After a rough passage through the Strait of Magellan, with the loss of one ship, the Pacific seemed relatively calm so he named it “Mar Pacifico (the calm sea). This name caught on over Balboa’s “South Sea”.
6. Magellan died in the Philippines. He was very keen on converting natives to Christianity.  For instance, he baptized King Humabon and thousands of his people.  But another king named Lapu-Lapu refused, so Magellan had his village burned.  Later, Magellan returned with an armed force, but the Indians fought back.  Magellan was targeted and hit in the face with a spear.  The natives then proceeded to use his body for stabbing practice.
7. Only one of his ships returned to Spain. It was captained by Juan Sebastian Elcano.  Only 18 of the 260 sailors survived.  However, the ship carried 381 sacks of cloves which were worth more than the value of the five ships combined.
8. It was not for another 58 years that another ship circumnavigated the globe – Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind.

https://www.history.com/news/10-surprising-facts-about-magellans-circumnavigation-of-the-globe

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/548165/facts-about-ferdinand-magellan

https://www.discoverwalks.com/blog/top10/top-10-facts-about-ferdinand-magellar/