Voyage of Disasters

The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, the first to go round the globe, was a disaster as well as a triumph. Of the five Spanish ships and about 270 men who sailed in 1519, only one ship and fewer than 20 men completed the voyage three years later. One ship had been wrecked and one turned back before they even rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean. Another was burnt and scuttled in the Pacific because so many men had died on the voyage that only two ships could be manned. These two ships separated, and one was captured by the Portuguese. Even Magellan himself did not survive the voyage. He was killed by natives in the Philippines and it was the last surviving Spanish captain, Sebastian del Cano, who brought the last ship, “Victoria”, home to Spain.