Magellan died in the Philippines, never finishing his voyage
On this day · 27 April 1521
The man whose name means circling the globe was killed in a beach skirmish, leaving others to complete the first lap of the world.
On April 27, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan was killed at the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. The Portuguese navigator had reached the islands while leading a Spanish expedition west toward the Spice Islands, and he made a fatal miscalculation.
When Chief Lapu-Lapu of Mactan refused to submit, Magellan led roughly 60 armored men ashore against perhaps 1,500 warriors. Coral shoals kept his ships from supporting the landing; his men waded through surf under a hail of spears and arrows, and Magellan fell on the beach.
He is remembered as the first to circle the globe — yet he never did. His battered fleet sailed on without him under Juan Sebastian Elcano, and the lone surviving ship, Victoria, limped back to Spain on September 6, 1522 with just 18 men.
The first circumnavigation in history was finished, then, by the weary crew Magellan left behind, not by the captain who first dreamed it up and set it in motion.
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