[Photo: Ferdinand Magellan] Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese maritime explorer who, while in the service of the Spanish Crown, tried to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. This was the first successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth in history. Although he did not complete the entire voyage (he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines) fellow Basque-navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano completed the final westward voyage. As Magellan traveled farther west than the Spice Islands, which he had visited on earlier voyages from the west, he became one of the first individuals to cross all the meridians of the globe. He was the first person to lead an expedition sailing westward from Europe to Asia and to cross the Pacific Ocean. Magellan was the fi...more >>rst European to enter the Pacific from the eponymous Strait of Magellan, which he discovered. He was also the first European to reach the archipelago of what is now known as the Philippines, which was unknown to the western world before his landing. Arab traders had established commerce within the archipelago centuries earlier. Of the 237 men who set out on five ships to circumnavigate the earth, only 18 completed the circumnavigation of the globe and managed to return to Spain in 1522. They were led by a Basque Juan Sebastián Elcano, who took over command of the expedition after Magellan's death. Seventeen other men arrived later in Spain, twelve men captured by the Portuguese in Cape Verde some weeks later, and in 1525/1526 five survivors of the Trinidad.