Born in Portugal, Ferdinand Magellan took part in a number of Portuguese expeditions exploring and conquering the East Indies during the early 1500s. By 1517, however, he found himself out of favor with King Emanuel and shifted his allegiance to King Charles I of Spain. The Spanish king accepted Magellan's proposal to lead a voyage westward to the riches of the Spice Islands of present-day Indonesia.
Magellan, from a
contemporary paintingOn September 20, 1520, Magellan led a flotilla of five ships with a crew of 250 out of the Spanish port of Sancar de Barrameda. Their goal was to find a water passage around the Americas and continue on to the East Indies. This was a true journey into the unknown - equivalent in adventurous risk to the twentieth century landing on the moon. Contemporary wisdom had no knowledge of what lay beyond the shores of South America and assumed it was a short distance across the Pacific Ocean to the Spice Islands. The journey was long and arduous, punctuated by starvation, disease, mutiny and desertion.
