What was the significance of Magellan’s voyage of 1519-1522?
Jonathan asked:
What was the significance of Magellan’s voyage of 1519-1522? What were some of the challenges for explorers of the pacific?
What was the significance of Magellan’s voyage of 1519-1522? What were some of the challenges for explorers of the pacific?
He was the first person to lead an expedition across the Pacific Ocean.
He discovered the Strait of Magellan, near (near the bottom of South America) the most important route between the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans prior to the Panama Canal.
He was the first European to reach the Philippines. Magellan was killed there, but his crew went on from there to become the first explorers in history to go all the way around the world.
He discovered new animals -penguins, and animals in South America that he called “camels without humps” (probably llamas).
Some of the challenges for explorers in the Pacific were extreme cold and storms at the tip of South America; the chance of getting lost in a vast unmapped mapped area and without any good way of determining their longitude; and the hostility of natives on some of the islands.
The main significance of his voyage was that he showed it was possible to sail around the world, and left a record of how to do it.