The Magellan–Elcano Circumnavigation, 1519–1522
The route of the first circumnavigation of the Earth: Magellan's fleet westward from Spain, completed by Elcano in 1522.
Five ships and about 270 men left Seville in 1519 to reach the Spice Islands by sailing west; one ship, the Victoria, and 18 exhausted survivors under Juan Sebastián Elcano returned in 1522, having proven the Earth could be rounded. Magellan himself was killed at Mactan in the Philippines in 1521 — the map follows the fleet's passage through the strait that now bears his name and across the unimagined vastness of the Pacific.
CC BY-SA 3.0 — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
