Like Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan was convinced there was a westerly route to the Far East, but unlike Columbus, Magellan found it.
After failing to persuade his own king, Manuel I of Portugal, to finance an expedition, Magellan went to the king of Spain, who gave him five ships and 241 men.
He set sail on Sept. 20, 1519, but after a mutiny on the coast of what is now Argentina, one ship returned to Spain.
The remaining four sailed south through what is now the Strait of Magellan and across the Pacific Ocean.
But the Pacific was far wider than Magellan had imagined. Food and water gave out and the crew ate rats, ox hides and sawdust before reaching Guam, where they obtained enough food and water to make it to the Philippines, where Magellan was killed when he joined in a fight between Filipino groups.
With only enough men left for two ships, the expedition abandoned the Concepción and sailed south to the Spice Islands, where they loaded the Trinidad and Vittoria with spices. The Trinidad then tried to return home by sailing east, back across the Pacific, but disease and leakage forced the ship to return to the Spice Islands where the crew was imprisoned by the Portuguese.
But the Vittoria continued sailing west, rounding the tip of Africa and finally making it home to Spain with just 19 men, almost three years after leaving Spain.
