Age of Discovery

===First circumnavigation===
{{main|Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation}}
[[File:Magellan's voyage EN.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|Route of [[Ferdinand Magellan|Magellan]]-[[Juan Sebastián Elcano|Elcano]] world circumnavigation (1519–1522)]]

By 1516, several Portuguese navigators conflicting with King [[Manuel I of Portugal]] gathered in [[Seville]] to serve the newly crowned [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles I of Spain]]. Among them were explorers Diogo and [[Duarte Barbosa]], [[Estêvão Gomes]], [[João Serrão]] and [[Ferdinand Magellan]], cartographers [[Jorge Reinel]] and [[Diogo Ribeiro (cartographer)|Diogo Ribeiro]], cosmographers Francisco and [[Rui Faleiro|Ruy Faleiro]] and the Flemish merchant [[Christopher de Haro]]. Ferdinand Magellan had sailed in India for Portugal up to 1513, when the [[Maluku Islands]] were reached, and had kept contact with [[Francisco Serrão]] who was living there.<ref>[[#Zweig 1938|Zweig 1938]], p. 51.</ref><ref>[[#Donkin 2003|Donkin 2003]], p. 29.</ref> Magellan developed the theory that the Maluku Islands were in the [[Treaty of Tordesillas|Tordesillas]] Spanish area, based on studies by Faleiro brothers.

Aware of the efforts of the Spanish to find a route to India by sailing west, Magellan presented his plan to [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles I of Spain]]. The king and Christopher de Haro financed Magellan's expedition. A fleet was put together, and Spanish navigators such as [[Juan Sebastián Elcano]] joined the enterprise. On August 10, 1519, they departed from Seville with a fleet of five ships—the [[caravel]] [[flagship]] ''[[Trinidad (ship)|Trinidad]]'' under Magellan's command, and [[carrack]]s ''San Antonio'', ''Concepcion'', ''Santiago'' and ''[[Victoria (ship)|Victoria]]''. They contained a crew of about 237 European men from several regions, with the goal of reaching the Maluku Islands by travelling west, trying to reclaim it under Spain's economic and political sphere.<ref>[[#DeLamar 1992|DeLamar 1992]], p. 349.</ref>
[[File:Detail from a map of Ortelius - Magellan's ship Victoria.png|thumb|left|''[[Victoria (ship)|Victoria]]'', the single ship to have completed the first world [[circumnavigation]]. (Detail from ''[[Maris Pacifici]]'' by [[Ortelius]], 1589.)]]

The fleet sailed further and further south, avoiding the Portuguese territories in Brazil, and became the first to reach [[Tierra del Fuego]] at the tip of the Americas. On October 21, starting in [[Cape Virgenes]], they began an arduous trip through a 373-mile (600&nbsp;km) long strait that Magellan named ''Estrecho de Todos los Santos'', the modern [[Strait of Magellan]]. On November 28, three ships entered the Pacific Ocean—then named ''Mar Pacífico'' because of its apparent stillness.<ref>[[#Catholic Encyclopædia 2007|Catholic Encyclopædia 2007]], web.</ref> The expedition managed to cross the Pacific. Magellan died in the [[battle of Mactan]] in the [[Philippines]], leaving the Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano the task of completing the voyage, reaching the [[Maluku Islands|Spice Islands]] in 1521. On September 6, 1522 ''Victoria'' returned to Spain, thus completing the first [[circumnavigation]] of the globe. Of the men who set out on five ships, only 18 completed the circumnavigation and managed to return to Spain in this single vessel led by Elcano. Seventeen others arrived later in Spain: twelve captured by the Portuguese in Cape Verde some weeks earlier, and between 1525 and 1527, and five survivors of the ''Trinidad''. [[Antonio Pigafetta]], a [[Republic of Venice|Venetian]] scholar and traveller who had asked to be on board and become a strict assistant of Magellan, kept an accurate journal that become the main source for much of what we know about this voyage.

This round-the-world voyage gave Spain valuable knowledge of the world and its oceans which later helped in the exploration and settlement of the [[History of the Philippines (1565–1898)|Philippines]]. Although this was not a realistic alternative to the Portuguese route around Africa<ref>[[#Fernandez-Armesto 2006|Fernandez-Armesto 2006]], p. 200.</ref> (the [[Strait of Magellan]] was too far south, and the Pacific Ocean too vast to cover in a single trip from Spain) successive Spanish expeditions used this information to explore the Pacific Ocean and discovered routes that [[Manila galleon|opened up trade]] between [[Acapulco]], [[New Spain]] (present-day [[Mexico]]) and [[Manila]] in the Philippines.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-04-06|title=Magellan Killed in Philippine Skirmish|url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/magellan-killed-philippine-skirmish/|access-date=2021-03-26|website=National Geographic Society|language=en|archive-date=2022-05-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220524100743/https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/apr27/magellan-killed-philippine-skirmish/|url-status=live}}</ref>