Magellan was a Portuguese Explorer who became known for having organised and captained the first expedition from Europe to Asia by the west, rounding the Americas by the south and crossing the Pacific Ocean for the first time, which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

The circumnavigation was actually completed after Magellan’s death during the Voyage by  the Basque Juan Sebastian Elcano.

Magellan, in his early years,  devoted himself to studying the most recent charts, investigating, in partnership with Cosmographer Rui Faleiro, a gateway from the Atlantic to the South Pacific and the possibility of the Moluccas being Spanish according to the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas. This treaty basically granted to the Portuguese the ‘exclusive rights’ to travel to ‘Asia’ via what is now the Cape of Good Hope (the southern most Cape of Africa). To avoid conflict the Spaniards wanted to explore to western route around the Americas, through what would become known as the Straights of Magellan.

The Spanish soon realized that the lands of the Americas were not a part of Asia, but a new continent. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas reserved for Portugal the eastern routes that went around Africa, and Vasco de Gama and the Portuguese had arrived in India in 1498.

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