ENGLISH II

EXPLORERS

Biography of Ferdinand
Magellan
ENGLISH PROJECT

STUDENT: BACA ALAYO, SERGIO BRYAN

 Ferdinand Magellan
• Ferdinand Magellan was born in Portugal, either
in the city of Porto or in Sabrosa, circa 1480.
• As a boy, he studied mapmaking and navigation.
• His parents were members of the Portuguese
nobility and died when Fernando was ten years
old.
• He studied at Queen Leonora's School of Pages in
Lisbon and spent his days poring over texts on
cartography, astronomy, and celestial navigation—
subjects that would serve him well in his later
pursuits.
• When he was twenty years old, he sailed in large fleets
and engaged in combat.
• In 1519, with the support of Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V, Magellan set out to find a better route to the
Spice Islands. (Indonesia)
• When he was twenty-five years old, he was part of the
expedition to India, commanded by Francisco de
Almeida.

• On his next trip, this time to Morocco and

under the orders of the Duke of Braganza, he
was wounded.
• The monarch Manuel I of Portugal, who had an
unfavorable report about the conduct of Magellan in
this last mission, twice rejected a project of the sailor
to explore new routes to the East, so Magellan
decided to try his luck in Spain.
• In 1517 he married Beatriz Barbosa, daughter of an
important Sevillian officer. They had a son named
Rodrigo.
• Magellan was convinced that there should be a
passage south of the South American coast to reach
India from the west, a step that Juan Diaz de Solis
(Spanish navigator and discoverer) had already
sought, unfortunately, he had not found.
• The possibility of finding an alternative route to
reach the East through the Atlantic Ocean was of
vital interest to the Spanish monarchy, since the
African coast was under the control of its main rival
in the spice trade, Portugal.
• After renouncing Portuguese nationality, and
with the support of the Portuguese astronomer
Ruy de Faleiro and Bishop Fonseca, he managed
to interest the Spanish monarch Carlos I, who
put at his disposal five ships: Trinidad, San
Antonio, Concepción, Victoria and Santiago,
with a crew of 270 men of different races and
nationalities
• The fleet sailed from Seville in September 1519,
after a failed Portuguese attempt to sabotage the
trip.
• Faleiro, victim of an attack of madness,
remained on the ground.
• The contingent passed through the archipelago of the Canaries, continued its trip to the coast of
Brazil and then turned south, where it explored the estuary of the Plata.
• In the bay of San Julián, Patagonia, the expedition was established to winter, period in which two
ships were lost, one by accident and the other by desertion.
• Finally, on October 21, 1520, they entered the strait that bears his name today (Magellan called it the
"Strait of All Saints"), which allowed them to encircle the American continent. A little over a month
later, they found on the other side an ocean of calm waters (which would later be called the Pacific
Ocean) at that moment the navigator, seeing his discovery wept with emotion
• They continued north, first skirting the coast of Chile to
then turn northwest towards what are now known as
Mariana Islands (which they named the Thieves'
Islands), at this point, they no longer had fresh water or
supplies, and the Most of the crew was sick.

• The arrival to those islands allowed them to resupply

and continue exploring other islands that made up the
archipelago that is now known as the Philippines.
• Magellan died in 1521, on Mactan Island, Philippines; he
was mortally wounded in a confrontation with the
Indians, with this, his dream of completing the first trip
around the world was broken.
Thanks!