Ferdinand Magellan the Navigator

500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan began a historic journey to circumnavigate the globe. Simple, right? Not really – the explorer and his journey remain shrouded in contradictions. Magellan was Portuguese, but he sailed on behalf of Spain. He was a formidable commander, but his crew hated him. His expedition was the first to sail the world, but Magellan did not circumnavigate the globe himself.
However, it seems evident that Ferdinand Magellan's expedition changed the world forever. His journey was "the greatest sea voyage ever made and the most significant," says historian Laurence Bergreen, author of Beyond the End of the World: The Terrifying Circum-Navigation of Ferdinand Magellan.