Portuguese navigator. Fernand of Magellan. in Portuguese Fernão de Magalhães. Convinced that one could reach Asia by circumventing the grounds discovered by Colomb, it initially offered its services to the king of Portugal, which got rid of it, then with Charles Quint, who entrusted to him the direction of a forwarding charged to arrive at the islands of Epices (i.e. Indonesia) by the road of the West.
The forwarding, which understood five ships, left Sanlúcar on on September 20th, 1519, touched Brazil later two months and recognized all the coast until Patagonie. Magellan discovered the strait which bears its name in October 1520 and penetrated in the ocean, whose water was then so calm that he baptized it “Peaceful”.
His/her companions and arrived to him for Philippines on on March 16th, 1521. But the navigator had, a little later to find in the archipelago an obscure death. Only one ship, Victoria, and eighteen sailors ordered by Juan Sebastián El Cano, returned to Spain on on September 6th, 1522. The forwarding, which had passed by the Cape of Good Hope, had thus achieved the first round the world tour.