Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan ( mə-GHEL-ən or mə-JEL-ən; Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w dɨ mɐɣɐˈʎɐ̃jʃ]; Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes, IPA: [feɾˈnando ðe maɣaˈʎanes]; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route, during which he discovered the interoceanic passage bearing thereafter his name and achieved the first European navigation from the Atlantic to Asia. During this voyage, Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan in 1521 in the present-day Philippines, after running into resistance from the indigenous population led by Lapulapu, who consequently became a Philippine national symbol of resistance to colonialism. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Ferdinand Magellan has received more than 8,002,763 page views. His biography is available in 158 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 154 in 2019). Ferdinand Magellan is the 3rd most popular explorer, the most popular biography from Portugal and the most popular Portuguese Explorer.

Ferdinand Magellan is most famous for being the first person to circumnavigate the globe.