Did Magellan sail around the world?

No. He was killed at Mactan in the Philippines on 27 April 1521, less than halfway through. The circumnavigation was completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano, who commanded the Victoria on the return and brought eighteen men home to Sanlúcar on 6 September 1522. Calling the voyage 'Magellan's circumnavigation' is a convention, not an accurate description of who did it.

What happened to the other four ships?

The Santiago was wrecked while surveying south of Port San Julián. The San Antonio deserted inside the strait and sailed home with a large share of the provisions. The Concepción was burned in the Philippines because too few men survived to sail her. The Trinidad tried to return eastward across the Pacific, failed, and was captured by the Portuguese. Only the Victoria completed the circuit.

What was the missing day at Cape Verde?

The Victoria's log had been kept faithfully throughout a westward circuit of the Earth, and on reaching Cape Verde in July 1522 the crew found the shore date was one day ahead of theirs. Travelling west with the sun, they had gained roughly an hour per fifteen degrees of longitude and lost a whole calendar day over the circuit. It was the first practical demonstration of the effect, three centuries before the international date line was agreed.

Magellan & Elcano — The First Circumnavigation, 1519 — 1522

20 September 1519 01 / 16 Sanlúcar de Barrameda Andalusia, Castile

Five ships, provisioned for two years, dropped down the Guadalquivir from Seville and waited at the river mouth before sailing. Magellan was Portuguese, commanding a Castilian fleet, under officers who had been appointed partly to watch him and who did not want him there.

“There the captain commanded that all the men of the fleet should confess before going on any further, in which he himself showed the way to the others.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Departure. The full route south is Magellan's alone to know.

26 September 1519 02 / 16 Tenerife Canary Islands

Wood, water and pitch. A warning reportedly reached Magellan here that his Castilian captains intended to depose him. He said nothing and sailed.

“Tuesday, the 20th September of the said year, we set sail from St. Lucar, making the course of the south-west otherwise named Labeiche; and on the twenty-sixth of the said month we arrived at an island of great Canaria, named Teneriphe, which is in twenty-eight degrees latitude; there we remained three days and a half to take in provisions and other things which were wanted.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Last European port. Warning of mutiny received.

13 December 1519 03 / 16 Bay of Santa Lucía Guanabara Bay, Brazil

Portuguese-claimed coast, entered at some risk for water and fresh food. Thirteen days of resupply, and a startled ethnography from Pigafetta, who described the Tupinambá at length and often admiringly, and recorded the rate of exchange in fish-hooks.

“We entered into this port the day of Saint Lucy, before Christmas, on which day we had the sun on the zenith, which is a term of astrology.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Fleet rested and reprovisioned; morale restored.

January 1520 04 / 16 Río de la Plata Estuary, South America

The first false strait. Two weeks spent sounding a river the size of a sea. From here every westward opening would have to be entered and disproved in turn — the method that would eventually cost the fleet a year.

“This place was formerly called the Cape of St. Mary, and it was thought there that from thence there was a passage to the Sea of Sur; that is to say, the South Sea.” — Antonio Pigafetta

approximate Passage disproved. The fleet turns south into the cold.

31 March – 24 August 1520 05 / 16 Port San Julián Patagonia

Five months wintering. Here the mutiny broke and was put down with executions and a marooning. Here too the Santiago was wrecked while surveying south, though her crew was saved. Pigafetta's name for the tall Tehuelche people he met — patagones — became the name of a region.

“We remained in this port, which was called the port of St. Julian, about five months, during which there happened to us many strange things, of which I will tell a part.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Content note: Execution, mutilation and marooning; colonial description of Indigenous people

Southern winter: gales and snow through the months in harbourRations reduced during the wintering Mutiny crushed. Santiago wrecked. Five months lost.

21 October 1520 06 / 16 Cabo Vírgenes Eastern mouth of the strait

The opening the fleet had been looking for, entered on the feast of St Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins and named for them. Nobody yet knew it went through.

“After going and taking the course to the fifty-second degree of the said Antarctic sky, on the day of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, we found, by a miracle, a strait which we called the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, this strait is a hundred and ten leagues long, which are four hundred and forty miles, and almost as wide as less than half a league, and it issues in another sea, which is called the peaceful sea; it is surrounded by very great and high mountains covered with snow.” — Antonio Pigafetta

The strait entered.

28 November 1520 07 / 16 Cape Deseado Western mouth of the strait

Thirty-eight days threading some 570 km of fjord, williwaws and dead-end channels, with fires burning on the southern shore that gave Tierra del Fuego its name. Partway through, the San Antonio turned back and sailed home, taking a large share of the fleet's provisions with her.

“Wednesday, the twenty-eighth of November, 1520, we came forth out of the said strait, and entered into the Pacific sea, where we remained three months and twenty days without taking in provisions or other refreshments, and we only ate old biscuit reduced to powder, and full of grubs, and stinking from the dirt which the rats had made on it when eating the good biscuit, and we drank water that was yellow and stinking.” — Antonio Pigafetta

approximate Passage completed. San Antonio deserts with much of the fleet's stores.

December 1520 – March 1521 08 / 16 Mar Pacífico The open Pacific

Roughly fourteen weeks without a useful landfall. Pigafetta's account of the crossing — rotten biscuit, foul water, leather stripped from the rigging and soaked to be chewed, rats sold between the men, and deaths from scurvy — is the passage on which the voyage's reputation rests. Magellan named the ocean for the calm weather they had, which was the one mercy of it.

“This was well named Pacific, for during this same time we met with no storm, and saw no land except two small uninhabited islands, in which we found only birds and trees.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Content note: Starvation and death from scurvy

Deaths from scurvy during the crossingProvisions exhausted; spoiled biscuit and putrid water reportedapproximate The Pacific crossed. The true size of the Earth becomes apparent.

6 March 1521 09 / 16 Islas de los Ladrones Guam, Mariana Islands

Landfall at last. Pigafetta's admiration for the Chamorro sailing canoes, which outsailed the European ships handily, is unmistakable in his account. A skiff was taken; Magellan retaliated by burning houses and killing. He named the islands for thieves, which is how the encounter looked from the deck and not from the shore.

“They are poor, but ingenious, and great thieves, and for the sake of that we called these three islands the Ladrone Islands.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Content note: Killing of Indigenous people and destruction of dwellings

First Pacific landfall. Violence at first contact.

16 March 1521 10 / 16 Homonhon Samar, Philippines

An uninhabited island where the sick were landed and fed. From here the fleet moved among islands whose peoples Enrique of Malacca, Magellan's enslaved interpreter, could increasingly understand — the point at which the expedition had arguably reached the far side of the world it set out from.

“The next day the captain-general wished to land at another uninhabited island near the first, to be in greater security and to take water, also to repose there a few days. He set up there two tents on shore for the sick, and had a sow killed for them.” — Antonio Pigafetta

approximate Philippine archipelago reached. The sick are landed and recover.

7 April 1521 11 / 16 Cebu Visayas, Philippines

Alliance with Rajah Humabon, a blood compact, and a mass baptism — and with it an obligation to fight Humabon's rivals, which is what killed Magellan three weeks later.

“We entreated him much not to go to this enterprise in person, but he as a good shepherd would not abandon his flock.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Alliance and conversion at Cebu.

27 April 1521 12 / 16 Mactan Battle shore, Philippines

Magellan waded ashore with a small party against Lapulapu's much larger force, in shallow water where the ships' guns could not reach him, and was killed in the surf. Pigafetta, who was there and wounded, wrote the account. The Philippines commemorate Lapulapu's victory; European accounts of the same morning have generally called it martyrdom.

“The captain had his right leg pierced by a poisoned arrow, on which account he gave orders to retreat by degrees; but almost all our men took to precipitate flight, so that there remained hardly six or eight of us with him.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Content note: Battle deaths

Magellan killed. The command fractures.

8 November 1521 13 / 16 Tidore Moluccas — the Spice Islands

The actual objective, reached at last with two ships and a fraction of the men. The Concepción had been burned for want of hands to sail her. The cloves loaded here would repay the cost of the whole expedition — the ledger closed in profit even though the people did not come home.

“Friday, the 8th November of 1521, three hours before sunset, we entered a port of the island called Tadore, and having gone near the shore, we cast anchor in twenty fathoms, and discharged all our artillery.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Cargo secured. Trinidad found too leaky to sail east; Victoria goes on alone.

May 1522 14 / 16 Cape of Good Hope Southern Africa

Elcano refused the Portuguese-held Indian Ocean ports, which meant crossing the whole width of that ocean without resupply and then beating round the Cape against the westerlies for weeks. More men died on this leg than on any since the Pacific. The pumps were never left unmanned.

“In order to double the Cape of Good Hope, we went as far as 42° South latitude, and we remained off that cape for nine weeks, with the sails struck on account of the Western and North-western gales which beat against our bows with fierce squalls. The Cape of Good Hope is in 34° 30' South latitude, 1600 leagues distant from the Cape of Malacca, and it is the largest and most dangerous cape in the world.” — Antonio Pigafetta

Continued deaths from starvation and scurvy on the homeward legapproximate The Cape doubled westward, against the wind and without provisions.

9 July 1522 15 / 16 Santiago, Cape Verde Portuguese islands

Desperate for food, the crew lied about where they had been, and were caught out by a calendar. Ashore it was one day of the week; the ship's log, kept faithfully westabout for nearly three years, said the day before. The missing day was the first physical demonstration that a westward circuit of the Earth loses one. Men sent ashore for provisions were seized.

“In order to see whether we had kept an exact account of the days, we charged those who went ashore to ask what day of the week it was, and they were told by the Portuguese inhabitants of the island that it was Thursday, which was a great cause of wondering to us, since with us it was only Wednesday.” — Antonio Pigafetta

The lost day discovered. Part of the shore party is detained.

6 September 1522 16 / 16 Sanlúcar de Barrameda Return

Eighteen men brought the Victoria over the bar, too weak to work her without help. Elcano was granted a coat of arms bearing a globe. Magellan's name went to the strait, and much later to two galaxies. Pigafetta, who had kept the record, went home to Italy and struggled to get it printed.

“At last, when it pleased Heaven, on Saturday the 6th of September of the year 1522, we entered the bay of San Lucar; and of sixty men who composed our crew when we left Maluco, we were reduced to only eighteen, and these for the most part sick.” — Antonio Pigafetta

The circuit closed. The first circumnavigation is complete.

Magellan & Elcano

Sanlúcar de Barrameda

The voyage in brief

Ship's Log

Landfalls & Plates

Reckoning

Difficulty

The route today

How to read the route

How the world was understood

Primary Sources

Further Reading

On Screen

Questions

Did Magellan sail around the world?

What happened to the other four ships?

What was the missing day at Cape Verde?

Editorial note

Magellan & Elcano

Sanlúcar de Barrameda

The voyage in brief

Ship's Log

Landfalls & Plates

Reckoning

Difficulty

The route today

How to read the route

How the world was understood

Primary Sources

Further Reading

On Screen

Questions

Did Magellan sail around the world?

What happened to the other four ships?

What was the missing day at Cape Verde?

Editorial note

Counting readers