Although many historians considered him as the first circumnavigator of the globe, Ferdinand Magellan never completed his voyage around the planet. Magellan, a sea captain, commanded a fleet of five wooden Spanish ships with 241 men on board and embarked on what is now considered as "the greatest of all epics of human discovery". Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who discovered America for Spain, traveled 8,000 miles aboard a Spanish ship across the Atlantic Ocean. But Magellan's men embarked on an expedition that brought them 42,000 miles around the planet.

The voyage began on September 20, 1519. Magellan and his three remaining ships reached the Philippines on March 17, 1521. On April 27, he was killed by the men of Lapulapu, chieftain of Mactan Island in the Philippines. Only one ship, the Trinidad, with 18 European crewmen led by Sebastian del Cano and four Malay crewmen (maybe Filipinos) completed the trip around the world and arrived in Seville, Spain in 1522.