Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães (a.k.a. Ferdinand Magellan or Hernan de Magallanes, c. 1480 – 1521) was in the Spanish service when he commanded a voyage to the East Indies by the western route in 1519. Juan Sebastian del Cano completed the mission after Magellan's death.
After service in the Portuguese forces in India, Malacca and North Africa, a wound left him with a permanent limp.
Denied an increase in his pension, he transferred his allegiance to Spain. He arrived in Seville, offering to find a westward passage to the Spice Islands without touching Portuguese territory.
He believed he could prove that the Spice Islands were within the Spanish hemisphere as defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas.
After finding a passage between South America and Tierra del Fuego, Magellan became the first European to navigate the Pacific.
He reached the Philippines in 1521 but died in a skirmish in Cebu. In the one remaining ship, the survivors sailed back to Spain around Africa, completing the first circumnavigation of the globe (1522).
