ZAP’S FACTS!
EXPLORERS

Ferdinand Magellan's crew was the first to sail all the way around the world.

He set off with five ships and 270 men. Three years later, one ship and 18 men finished the trip - without him.

2 min read
Ferdinand Magellan's crew was the first to sail all the way around the world.
THE FULL STORY

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sailor who couldn’t get his own king to fund a daring plan: sail west to reach the spice-rich islands of Asia. So he switched sides and convinced the king of Spain instead. In 1519 he set sail with five ships and about 270 men.

The journey was brutal. They fought off mutinies, got stuck in a freezing strait at the bottom of South America (now called the Strait of Magellan), and then sailed for 99 days across a giant unknown ocean without spotting any land. Men starved and chewed leather just to survive.

Magellan himself never made it home - he was killed in a battle in the Philippines in 1521. But one battered ship, the Victoria, limped back to Spain in 1522 with just 18 starving survivors. They had circled the entire planet, proving for certain that Earth is round.

Captain James Cook mapped more of the Pacific Ocean than anyone in history.
DID YOU KNOW? Captain James Cook mapped more of the Pacific Ocean than anyone in history. He charted the coasts of New Zealand and eastern Australia, and his crew was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. 2 min read
Ibn Battuta traveled 75,000 miles around the medieval world.
DID YOU KNOW? Ibn Battuta traveled 75,000 miles around the medieval world. This 14th-century Moroccan judge wandered for almost 30 years and covered more ground than any traveler before him. 2 min read
Sacagawea guided Lewis and Clark across North America with a baby on her back.
DID YOU KNOW? Sacagawea guided Lewis and Clark across North America with a baby on her back. A teenage Shoshone mother helped lead one of America's most famous expeditions - while carrying her two-month-old son the whole way. 2 min read