WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.799 You know, history has this funny way of smoothing 00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:07.519 over all the rough edges. We remember the headline, 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:10.099 but we totally forget the fine print. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:10.699 --> 00:00:13.800 And honestly, there is no bigger headline and 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.800 no messier fine print in the entire history of 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:19.579 exploration than Ferdinand Magellan. It's the 00:00:19.579 --> 00:00:22.199 ultimate historical branding exercise, isn't 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:24.500 it? The name is just synonymous with the globe 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:27.239 itself. You say Magellan and the first thing 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:29.839 anyone thinks is. First man to circumnavigate 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:32.880 the globe. First circumnavigation every time. 00:00:33.020 --> 00:00:34.579 Right. It's the answer to the trivia question. 00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:36.619 It's in every single textbook. But here's the 00:00:36.619 --> 00:00:39.310 thing. And this is the part that. just gets me 00:00:39.310 --> 00:00:41.729 every time. When you actually sit down with the 00:00:41.729 --> 00:00:44.530 primary sources, especially the diaries of Antonio 00:00:44.530 --> 00:00:46.469 Pigafetta, who was the chronicler on the ship, 00:00:46.609 --> 00:00:49.229 you realize that headline is, well, it's technically 00:00:49.229 --> 00:00:51.770 a lie. It's not just a lie. It's a complete fabrication 00:00:51.770 --> 00:00:55.329 of the timeline. Ferdinand Magellan never finished 00:00:55.329 --> 00:00:57.109 the trip. Never made it back. He never made it 00:00:57.109 --> 00:00:59.250 back to Spain. He died in the surf in the Philippines 00:00:59.250 --> 00:01:01.170 about halfway through the voyage. And the man 00:01:01.170 --> 00:01:04.010 who actually did complete the first circumnavigation, 00:01:04.150 --> 00:01:06.730 the guy who captained that last ship back to 00:01:06.730 --> 00:01:09.269 Seville. A man named... Juan Sebastian Elcano. 00:01:09.510 --> 00:01:11.329 And here's the kicker, you know, the part that 00:01:11.329 --> 00:01:13.469 gets left out of the grade school version. Elcano 00:01:13.469 --> 00:01:18.030 absolutely despised Magellan. Despised might 00:01:18.030 --> 00:01:20.290 be putting it lightly. I mean, Elcano spent the 00:01:20.290 --> 00:01:22.810 first half of the voyage actively trying to undermine 00:01:22.810 --> 00:01:25.750 Magellan. He was part of a mutiny against him. 00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:28.269 It's just a profound historical irony. The man 00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:31.129 who gets all the credit died this horrible, violent 00:01:31.129 --> 00:01:33.859 death thousands of miles from home. And the man 00:01:33.859 --> 00:01:35.680 who actually brought the ship home was one of 00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:38.280 his bitterest rivals. So today we're going to 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:39.680 do something a little different. We're not just 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:41.780 going to recount the map making. We want to reconstruct 00:01:41.780 --> 00:01:45.280 the actual reality of this voyage based on the 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.700 sources. And let me tell you, it is nothing like 00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:50.920 the romanticized version of brave men sailing 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:54.620 into the sunset. No. This is a story of treason, 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:59.120 execution, scurvy, religious obsession, and a 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:02.829 fatal, fatal error in judgment. And we are so 00:02:02.829 --> 00:02:05.469 lucky to have incredible documentation for this. 00:02:05.629 --> 00:02:07.730 We're leaning really heavily on the journals 00:02:07.730 --> 00:02:10.430 of Antonio Pigafetta, who was this Italian scholar 00:02:10.430 --> 00:02:13.969 who basically paid his way onto the ship just 00:02:13.969 --> 00:02:16.530 to see the world. Pigafetta is a fascinating 00:02:16.530 --> 00:02:18.810 character in his own right. He wasn't a sailor. 00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:20.629 He was almost like a tourist with a notebook. 00:02:20.909 --> 00:02:23.409 And without him, we'd know almost nothing of 00:02:23.409 --> 00:02:25.729 the day -to -day horror of this expedition. He's 00:02:25.729 --> 00:02:27.849 the reason we know about the politics, the meals. 00:02:28.069 --> 00:02:30.750 The specific words spoken in the final moments, 00:02:30.930 --> 00:02:33.669 he saw it all. So let's unpack this. Before we 00:02:33.669 --> 00:02:35.550 even get to the ships and the starvation and 00:02:35.550 --> 00:02:37.150 everything else, we have to understand the man. 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:40.930 Who was Ferdinand Magellan? Because looking at 00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:42.830 his background, he seems like the most unlikely 00:02:42.830 --> 00:02:45.250 candidate to lead a Spanish expedition. Well, 00:02:45.409 --> 00:02:47.969 primarily because he wasn't Spanish. Right. He 00:02:47.969 --> 00:02:51.270 was Portuguese, born around 1480, probably in 00:02:51.270 --> 00:02:53.750 northern Portugal, to minor nobility. And this 00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:56.750 is crucial. He wasn't an explorer by trade. Not 00:02:56.750 --> 00:02:59.599 at first. He was a soldier of the empire. He 00:02:59.599 --> 00:03:01.979 spent something like eight years in the Indian 00:03:01.979 --> 00:03:04.780 Ocean fighting for the Portuguese crown. Right. 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:06.500 The sources mention he was at the Battle of Diu. 00:03:06.599 --> 00:03:09.060 He was in Malacca. This wasn't some armchair 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:12.180 admiral studying star charts in a library. No, 00:03:12.259 --> 00:03:14.960 not at all. He was a warrior. He knew the smell 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:17.699 of gunpowder and the sound of steel. In fact, 00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:20.860 in 1513, he was fighting in Morocco at a place 00:03:20.860 --> 00:03:23.979 called Azamor. During a skirmish there, he was 00:03:23.979 --> 00:03:26.719 wounded in the leg. And that wound never healed 00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:29.020 right, did it? It never healed properly. It left 00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:30.879 him with a permanent limp for the rest of his 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:34.280 life. That limp is such a defining image for 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:36.759 me. You just have this picture of a hardened 00:03:36.759 --> 00:03:38.620 veteran limping through the court of Lisbon, 00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:40.759 probably feeling like he's given everything to 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:42.479 his country. And feeling like his country gave 00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:45.699 him absolutely nothing back. That is the catalyst 00:03:45.699 --> 00:03:49.259 for everything that follows. Despite years of 00:03:49.259 --> 00:03:51.520 bleeding for Portugal, he fell completely out 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:54.000 of favor with King Manuel I. Why? What happened? 00:03:54.460 --> 00:03:56.680 Magellan had been accused of illegal trading 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:00.080 with the Moors, basically war profiteering. Now, 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:02.319 the charges were eventually dropped, but the 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:04.979 stigma, you know, it stuck. It's the classic 00:04:04.979 --> 00:04:07.620 disgruntled employee scenario, but on a massive 00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:11.180 geopolitical scale. Exactly. Magellan felt he 00:04:11.180 --> 00:04:14.319 was owed a higher pension, more respect. He went 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:16.879 to King Manuel repeatedly with this plan. He 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:18.899 wanted to sail to the Spice Islands, the Moluccas. 00:04:19.879 --> 00:04:22.579 But he had this radical idea. He wanted to go 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:25.439 west. Or cross the Atlantic to avoid the Portuguese 00:04:25.439 --> 00:04:27.620 route around Africa that they already controlled. 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:29.920 Exactly. And King Manuel just shut him down. 00:04:30.139 --> 00:04:32.420 Completely. Repeatedly. The accounts of their 00:04:32.420 --> 00:04:35.399 final meeting are just brutal. Magellan asks 00:04:35.399 --> 00:04:38.540 for permission to go. The king says no. Magellan 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:41.480 asks for a tiny increase in his pension. The 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:44.810 king says no. So finally, Magellan asks if he 00:04:44.810 --> 00:04:46.829 has the king's permission to offer his services 00:04:46.829 --> 00:04:49.310 to another country. Which is really just a polite 00:04:49.310 --> 00:04:51.410 way of asking, can I go work for your worst enemy? 00:04:51.670 --> 00:04:54.449 And King Manuel, in this moment of pure arrogance 00:04:54.449 --> 00:04:56.569 that would literally change the course of history, 00:04:56.790 --> 00:04:58.850 basically looked at his males and said, I don't 00:04:58.850 --> 00:05:00.689 care what you do. That has to be one of the biggest 00:05:00.689 --> 00:05:03.509 oops moments in royal history. It was a massive 00:05:03.509 --> 00:05:05.850 strategic error, and Magellan took him at his 00:05:05.850 --> 00:05:09.750 word. In 1517, he packs up. moves to Seville, 00:05:09.870 --> 00:05:12.829 Spain, he changes his allegiance, he marries 00:05:12.829 --> 00:05:14.910 the daughter of a prominent local, and effectively 00:05:14.910 --> 00:05:18.389 he defects to Portugal's biggest rival. So now 00:05:18.389 --> 00:05:21.029 he's got to sell this same idea to the Spanish 00:05:21.029 --> 00:05:23.810 king, Charles I, who's, what, a teenager at this 00:05:23.810 --> 00:05:26.110 point? Just a teenager. But I want to pause on 00:05:26.110 --> 00:05:28.769 the pitch Magellan makes. Because there was a 00:05:28.769 --> 00:05:31.889 huge legal hurdle here, wasn't there? Yeah. The 00:05:31.889 --> 00:05:35.060 Treaty of Tordesillas. Right. To understand why 00:05:35.060 --> 00:05:37.420 this whole voyage was so controversial, you have 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:40.240 to look at that treaty. The Pope had essentially 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:43.360 taken a ruler and drawn a line right down the 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:45.360 middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And just divided 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.660 the non -Christian world in half. In half. Portugal 00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:50.480 got everything east of the line. So Africa and 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:52.740 the route to India. Spain got everything to the 00:05:52.740 --> 00:05:55.300 west. The Americas, basically. The arrogance 00:05:55.300 --> 00:05:58.019 is just... Breathtaking when you really think 00:05:58.019 --> 00:06:00.500 about it. It was, but it created this huge problem 00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:03.279 for Spain. They wanted the spices, all the wealth 00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:05.060 from the east, but they couldn't sell east to 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:07.300 get them. So Magellan's pitch was a workaround. 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:10.000 He's essentially saying, I can get you to the 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.379 Spice Islands by going west, through your side 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:14.759 of the map. Exactly. He was hacking the treaty. 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:17.620 He argued that the Spice Islands were so far 00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:19.720 east, they actually wrapped all the way around 00:06:19.720 --> 00:06:22.180 the globe and fell back into the Spanish hemisphere. 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:25.060 Did he actually believe that, or was he just... 00:06:25.870 --> 00:06:28.189 you know, fudging the geography to get the funding. 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:30.569 It's debated, but he certainly sold it with conviction. 00:06:30.910 --> 00:06:33.930 And he had a secret weapon in his pitch letters 00:06:33.930 --> 00:06:36.689 from a friend, Francisco Soran, who is already 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:39.170 living in the Spice Islands, describing their 00:06:39.170 --> 00:06:42.750 insane wealth. And he had a slave named Enrique. 00:06:42.889 --> 00:06:45.269 Enrique is such a key figure in all of this. 00:06:45.410 --> 00:06:48.350 He is vital. Enrique was from that region, Malacca, 00:06:48.410 --> 00:06:50.670 or maybe Sumatra. Magellan brought him to the 00:06:50.670 --> 00:06:52.949 Spanish court and presented him as living proof 00:06:52.949 --> 00:06:55.980 of the people they would find. He used Enrique 00:06:55.980 --> 00:06:57.939 and those letters to convince the young King 00:06:57.939 --> 00:07:00.100 Charles that the prize was reachable. And the 00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:03.660 king bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. He made 00:07:03.660 --> 00:07:05.720 Magellan an admiral, gave him the command of 00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:08.319 the Order of Santiago, and funded the Armada 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:10.720 of Molucca. Which brings us to the fleet itself. 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:15.240 Five ships. The Trinidad, the San Antonio, the 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:18.100 Concepción, the Santiago, and the famous Victoria. 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:21.519 And a crew that was, well, let's call it diverse, 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:24.819 but not... in a happy, harmonious kind of way. 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:27.560 It was a powder keg. You had about 270 men. But 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:29.459 the nationalities were all over the map. You 00:07:29.459 --> 00:07:31.339 had Spaniards, of course, but also Portuguese, 00:07:31.579 --> 00:07:34.800 Italians, Greeks, French, Germans. Even one Englishman 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:37.220 and, of course, Enrique. But the real friction 00:07:37.220 --> 00:07:39.160 was at the top. You have a Portuguese commander 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:41.860 leading a Spanish fleet. That was the fatal flaw 00:07:41.860 --> 00:07:44.209 in the hierarchy from the very beginning. The 00:07:44.209 --> 00:07:46.329 captains of the other ships were all Spanish 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:49.149 noblemen guys like Cartagena and Quesada, and 00:07:49.149 --> 00:07:51.329 they absolutely resented being bossed around 00:07:51.329 --> 00:07:53.509 by Magellan. To them, he was a traitor to his 00:07:53.509 --> 00:07:56.430 own country, a foreigner, and possibly a Portuguese 00:07:56.430 --> 00:07:58.889 spy sent to sabotage the whole thing. And back 00:07:58.889 --> 00:08:01.170 in Portugal, King Manuel is suddenly realizing 00:08:01.170 --> 00:08:04.790 he made a catastrophic mistake. The sources say 00:08:04.790 --> 00:08:06.870 he tried to sabotage the fleet before they even 00:08:06.870 --> 00:08:10.139 left. Oh, he was furious. He launched a whole 00:08:10.139 --> 00:08:12.899 campaign of harassment. He ordered Magellan's 00:08:12.899 --> 00:08:15.259 family crest to be vandalized back in Portugal. 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:18.160 There were credible rumors of assassination plots 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.199 in the streets of Seville. Wow. The Portuguese 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:24.220 ambassador tried to bribe Magellan to cancel 00:08:24.220 --> 00:08:26.720 the trip. And when that didn't work, he started 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:29.300 whispering in the ears of the Spanish captains, 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:32.600 sowing the seeds of mutiny before they even untied 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:34.799 the ropes. Talk about a toxic work environment. 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:36.840 I mean, they haven't even left port and half 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:39.100 the management team already wants the CEO dead. 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:43.480 Exactly. The fleet sailed in September 1519 under 00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:46.600 this dark cloud of suspicion and hatred. And 00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:49.129 Magellan knew. He knew his own captains were 00:08:49.129 --> 00:08:51.769 just looking for any excuse to remove him. So 00:08:51.769 --> 00:08:53.730 they crossed the Atlantic. The first major stop 00:08:53.730 --> 00:08:56.210 is Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Yeah, specifically 00:08:56.210 --> 00:08:58.690 Guanabara Bay. Now, because this was Portuguese 00:08:58.690 --> 00:09:00.750 territory, they had to be careful, but they managed 00:09:00.750 --> 00:09:03.129 to stop and trade with the Tupi natives. This 00:09:03.129 --> 00:09:04.830 part of the journal always feels like the calm 00:09:04.830 --> 00:09:07.129 before the storm. They're trading little bells 00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:09.870 and mirrors for fresh food and water. It was 00:09:09.870 --> 00:09:12.429 a brief respite, but the discipline issues started 00:09:12.429 --> 00:09:15.500 showing their teeth almost immediately. The sources 00:09:15.500 --> 00:09:18.860 note a really grim detail here. Magellan executed 00:09:18.860 --> 00:09:21.919 a crew member, a man named Antonio Salomon, for 00:09:21.919 --> 00:09:24.120 sodomy while they were in Brazil. So he's sending 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:25.840 a pretty clear message right from the start. 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:28.200 He was asserting absolute authority. He was telling 00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:31.600 the entire crew, I am the law out here. But the 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.639 real trouble begins when they leave the warmth 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:36.220 of Brazil and head south, searching for this 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:38.700 mythical passage to the Pacific. And they don't 00:09:38.700 --> 00:09:41.519 find it. Not at first. No. The coast of South 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:43.899 America just goes on and on and on. They keep 00:09:43.899 --> 00:09:46.480 sailing south and it gets colder. The days get 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.720 shorter. The seas get rougher. They explore the 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:52.799 river plate where modern day Argentina is thinking 00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:54.899 that might be the Strait. But it's just a dead 00:09:54.899 --> 00:09:57.559 end. So now it's winter in the southern hemisphere. 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:01.399 They're stuck in Patagonia at this bleak, desolate 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:04.139 harbor they call Port St. Julian. It's the bottom 00:10:04.139 --> 00:10:06.860 of the world. It is freezing. The men are on 00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:09.000 reduced rations. They're miserable. And that 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.179 misery is the perfect breeding ground for mutiny. 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:15.059 This is the Easter mutiny of 1520. And honestly, 00:10:15.179 --> 00:10:16.919 the way it plays out is like something out of 00:10:16.919 --> 00:10:19.679 Game of Thrones. It really is. On Easter night, 00:10:19.919 --> 00:10:22.980 three of the five captains, Cartagena, Quesada, 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:26.080 and Mendoza, they make their move. They secretly 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:28.639 board the San Antonio, put its captain in chains, 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.659 and stab the ship's master. By morning, they 00:10:31.659 --> 00:10:34.100 control three of the five ships. So Magellan 00:10:34.100 --> 00:10:36.860 wakes up, looks out at the harbor, and realizes 00:10:36.860 --> 00:10:39.379 he's completely outnumbered. The rebels send 00:10:39.379 --> 00:10:41.539 him a message basically saying, we're in charge 00:10:41.539 --> 00:10:44.080 now and we're going back to Spain. Most commanders 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:46.360 would have surrendered. It was hopeless. But 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:49.360 Magellan. He does something incredibly ruthless. 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:51.659 He knew that open warfare would just sink the 00:10:51.659 --> 00:10:54.220 ship, so he used deception. He sent a small boat 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:56.980 over to Mendoza's ship, the Victoria, supposedly 00:10:56.980 --> 00:10:59.759 to deliver a letter to negotiate terms. The classic 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:02.940 Trojan horse. Exactly. Mendoza, feeling confident, 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:05.139 lets the men on board. He takes the letter from 00:11:05.139 --> 00:11:07.179 the messenger, looks at it, and apparently starts 00:11:07.179 --> 00:11:10.139 laughing at Magellan's audacity. At that exact 00:11:10.139 --> 00:11:12.379 moment, the messenger pulls out a dagger and 00:11:12.379 --> 00:11:15.720 stabs Mendoza in the throat. Wow. Just like that. 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:18.960 Simultaneously. another boat filled with loyalists 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:23.039 storms the ship. In a matter of minutes, Magellan 00:11:23.039 --> 00:11:26.200 had regained control of the Victoria. Now the 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:28.720 balance of power was three ships to two in his 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:32.460 favor. The mutiny just collapsed. And the punishment. 00:11:32.860 --> 00:11:34.899 I mean, we talk about harsh management, but this 00:11:34.899 --> 00:11:37.139 was something else. This was medieval. In Magellan's 00:11:37.139 --> 00:11:39.440 eyes, it was necessary theater. He had to make 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:42.059 an example of them. Qasada, one of the ringleaders, 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.240 was beheaded. Okay, that seems... standard for 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:48.100 mutiny. But Magellan didn't stop there. He had 00:11:48.100 --> 00:11:51.179 Quesada's body quartered, cut into four pieces, 00:11:51.299 --> 00:11:53.659 and hung on gibbets on the shore for everyone 00:11:53.659 --> 00:11:56.190 to see. And Cartagena. They're really high -ranking 00:11:56.190 --> 00:11:58.490 noblemen. Cartagena was too well -connected to 00:11:58.490 --> 00:12:01.110 just execute, so Magellan devised a punishment 00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:03.789 that was arguably much worse. When the fleet 00:12:03.789 --> 00:12:06.289 finally left St. Julian months later, they left 00:12:06.289 --> 00:12:08.889 Cartagena behind. Marooned him. Marooned him 00:12:08.889 --> 00:12:11.029 on that desolate, freezing coast with a priest 00:12:11.029 --> 00:12:13.409 who had also conspired with him. They just left 00:12:13.409 --> 00:12:15.970 them there with a small supply of hardtack and 00:12:15.970 --> 00:12:18.250 wine. Just left to freeze or starve at the edge 00:12:18.250 --> 00:12:20.230 of the world. They were never seen again. It 00:12:20.230 --> 00:12:22.990 established Magellan's absolute terrifying authority. 00:12:23.330 --> 00:12:26.570 The crew was petrified of him now. But it also 00:12:26.570 --> 00:12:28.509 hardened the hatred that the remaining Spanish 00:12:28.509 --> 00:12:30.990 officers felt. They weren't following him out 00:12:30.990 --> 00:12:33.070 of loyalty anymore. They were following him out 00:12:33.070 --> 00:12:36.090 of fear. Cure fear. So with the mutiny crushed 00:12:36.090 --> 00:12:38.750 and the winter finally over, they keep pushing 00:12:38.750 --> 00:12:42.509 south. And in October of 1520, they find it. 00:12:43.020 --> 00:12:45.519 The Strait. The Strait of Magellan. You know, 00:12:45.539 --> 00:12:47.820 we look at it on a map today and it's just a 00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:51.220 line. But in reality, it is this treacherous, 00:12:51.220 --> 00:12:55.100 winding maze of fjords and waterways. The currents 00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:57.159 are violent. The winds are completely unpredictable. 00:12:57.500 --> 00:12:58.960 It must have been terrifying. They had no idea 00:12:58.960 --> 00:13:00.620 if it even went all the way through to the other 00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:03.039 side. And during this exploration of the Strait, 00:13:03.100 --> 00:13:05.490 they lose another ship. The San Antonio, which 00:13:05.490 --> 00:13:07.870 was the largest supply ship carrying the bulk 00:13:07.870 --> 00:13:10.509 of their food. Oh, no. It was sent to scout a 00:13:10.509 --> 00:13:13.309 particular branch of the strait. The pilot, a 00:13:13.309 --> 00:13:15.809 man named Estevan Gomes, who hated Magellan, 00:13:15.929 --> 00:13:19.190 saw his chance. He overpowered the captain, turned 00:13:19.190 --> 00:13:21.850 the ship around. They deserted. They fled, turned 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:24.529 tail and sailed all the way back to Spain. That 00:13:24.529 --> 00:13:27.250 is a catastrophic blow. They've just lost a massive 00:13:27.250 --> 00:13:29.529 chunk of their supplies right before what's going 00:13:29.529 --> 00:13:30.970 to be the longest leg of the journey. It was 00:13:30.970 --> 00:13:33.500 devastating. But Magellan didn't know they had 00:13:33.500 --> 00:13:36.259 deserted. He assumed they were lost or shipwrecked. 00:13:36.279 --> 00:13:38.679 He actually spent days searching for them before 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:41.419 finally giving up and pushing on. And in November 00:13:41.419 --> 00:13:44.259 1520, the three remaining ships, the Trinidad, 00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:47.740 Concepcion, and Victoria, emerged from the Strait 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:50.899 into this vast open ocean. And the ocean was 00:13:50.899 --> 00:13:54.200 so calm, so peaceful compared to the violent 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:57.659 Atlantic, that Magellan named it Mar Pacifico, 00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:01.000 the Pacific Ocean. A beautiful name for what 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.000 became essentially a death trap. You have to 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.460 understand Magellan had no concept of how large 00:14:06.460 --> 00:14:08.860 this ocean was. The maps of the time were just 00:14:08.860 --> 00:14:11.039 completely wrong. They wildly underestimated 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:12.840 the circumference of the earth. So he thought 00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:14.580 the Spice Islands were just a few days away. 00:14:14.779 --> 00:14:17.200 A few days, maybe a week tops. He thought we'll 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:19.279 be there by the weekend. He honestly believed 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:21.360 the hard part was over. And how long did it actually 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:24.340 take to cross? Three months and 20 days. Pause 00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:27.399 and imagine that. You think you have rations 00:14:27.399 --> 00:14:29.799 for a week. And you were out there for nearly 00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:32.659 four months without seeing a single speck of 00:14:32.659 --> 00:14:34.720 land. The conditions that Pigafetta describes 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:37.440 are the stuff of nightmares. They ran out of 00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:40.200 fresh food almost immediately. The water in the 00:14:40.200 --> 00:14:43.440 casks went putrid and turned yellow. Pigafetta 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:45.460 writes that they were reduced to eating biscuit 00:14:45.460 --> 00:14:48.179 dust that was mixed with worms. And it gets worse 00:14:48.179 --> 00:14:50.840 than that. Oh, it gets much worse. They ran out 00:14:50.840 --> 00:14:53.100 of the wormy biscuits. So they started looking 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:55.809 at the ship itself for food. They began cutting 00:14:55.809 --> 00:14:58.190 the ox hide leather from the yardarm's leather 00:14:58.190 --> 00:15:00.990 that had been hardened by years of sun and rain 00:15:00.990 --> 00:15:03.570 and salt. Beating leather. They would drag it 00:15:03.570 --> 00:15:05.850 in the sea for four or five days just to soften 00:15:05.850 --> 00:15:07.809 it. Then they would grill it over embers and 00:15:07.809 --> 00:15:10.649 try to chew it. Eating leather. Eating sawdust 00:15:10.649 --> 00:15:14.190 from the planks. Rats became a delicacy. A luxury 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:16.529 item. If you were lucky enough to catch a rat, 00:15:16.629 --> 00:15:18.529 you could sell it to another starving sailor 00:15:18.529 --> 00:15:21.250 for half a gold ducat. And then came the scurvy. 00:15:21.580 --> 00:15:24.659 Scurvy is just a gruesome, gruesome way to die. 00:15:24.759 --> 00:15:27.000 It's your body literally falling apart because 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.620 it can't make collagen. Pigafetta describes the 00:15:29.620 --> 00:15:32.240 men's gums swelling up until they completely 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:34.720 covered their teeth. They couldn't eat even if 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:36.639 they had food. And their old wounds would open 00:15:36.639 --> 00:15:39.720 up? Yes. Old scars from years ago would just 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:42.419 spontaneously open up and start bleeding again. 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:45.700 It's horrific. About 30 men died during this 00:15:45.700 --> 00:15:48.539 crossing. But here is the detail that always 00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:51.080 sticks with me from the sources. Magellan himself 00:15:51.080 --> 00:15:54.919 never got sick. It's a fascinating anomaly. While 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:57.519 his men are rotting alive around him, Magellan 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:00.080 remained perfectly healthy. Was it just a strong 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:03.610 constitution? Or luck? We think it was his diet. 00:16:03.710 --> 00:16:05.850 The sources mention that Magellan had a personal 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:08.409 stash of preserved quince. It's a fruit, sort 00:16:08.409 --> 00:16:10.149 of like a pear or an apple, that he kept in his 00:16:10.149 --> 00:16:12.870 cabin. He ate it as a delicacy, a little taste 00:16:12.870 --> 00:16:15.090 of home. He had no idea. He had no idea, but 00:16:15.090 --> 00:16:17.870 quince is packed with vitamin C. It was accidentally 00:16:17.870 --> 00:16:19.850 medicinal. He was saving his own life without 00:16:19.850 --> 00:16:22.490 even knowing it. Right, but think about the optics 00:16:22.490 --> 00:16:25.169 of that. You're a starving crewman. You're chewing 00:16:25.169 --> 00:16:27.230 on leather, watching your friends die in the 00:16:27.230 --> 00:16:29.250 dark. And you look up at the quarterdeck and 00:16:29.250 --> 00:16:31.889 you see your captain looking healthy, energetic, 00:16:32.169 --> 00:16:34.789 eating his special private stash of fruit. It 00:16:34.789 --> 00:16:37.210 must have looked like sorcery. Or worse, just 00:16:37.210 --> 00:16:39.509 plain selfishness. It would have fueled that 00:16:39.509 --> 00:16:43.090 whole us versus them narrative that Elcano and 00:16:43.090 --> 00:16:45.509 the other Spanish officers were nurturing. Absolutely. 00:16:45.769 --> 00:16:50.350 But finally, in March of 1521, they spot land. 00:16:50.830 --> 00:16:54.360 Guam. And the first contact to Guam sets a really, 00:16:54.419 --> 00:16:56.519 really dark precedent for the rest of the voyage. 00:16:56.720 --> 00:16:58.879 It was a disaster of cultural misunderstanding. 00:16:59.700 --> 00:17:02.440 The local Chamorro people came out to the ships. 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:04.559 They were amazed by this European technology. 00:17:04.819 --> 00:17:07.519 They climbed aboard and they started taking things, 00:17:07.619 --> 00:17:10.019 some rigging, bits of iron, and they took a small 00:17:10.019 --> 00:17:12.019 skiff, a little rowboat. To the Chamorro, this 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:14.339 was probably just trade shed, right? Fresh water 00:17:14.339 --> 00:17:16.660 and fruit were taking this cool boat. Exactly. 00:17:16.759 --> 00:17:19.380 In their culture, property was likely more communal 00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:21.819 or transactional. But to the Europeans, who were 00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:25.279 starving and paranoid and on edge, this was theft, 00:17:25.539 --> 00:17:29.619 pure and simple. And Magellan reacted with completely 00:17:29.619 --> 00:17:32.759 disproportionate violence. He led a raiding party 00:17:32.759 --> 00:17:36.079 ashore. With crossbows and muskets. They burned 00:17:36.079 --> 00:17:40.289 down 40 or 50 houses and killed seven men. Just 00:17:40.289 --> 00:17:41.849 to get the rowboat back. Just to get the little 00:17:41.849 --> 00:17:44.250 boat back. He named the islands La Namera de 00:17:44.250 --> 00:17:46.849 los Ladornes, the Islands of Thieves. It just 00:17:46.849 --> 00:17:49.009 showed that Magellan's patience was completely 00:17:49.009 --> 00:17:51.589 gone. He was desperate and he was willing to 00:17:51.589 --> 00:17:54.549 use terror to get what he needed. So they leave 00:17:54.549 --> 00:17:57.230 Guam, restocked but with blood on their hands, 00:17:57.269 --> 00:17:59.490 and they finally, finally reach the Philippines. 00:17:59.829 --> 00:18:01.789 This is the moment Magellan had been dreaming 00:18:01.789 --> 00:18:04.170 of. He has crossed the impossible ocean. They 00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:06.410 arrived at the island of Samar and then moved 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:09.279 to a smaller island called Limasawa. And this 00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:11.880 is where we have one of the most incredible goosebump 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:14.400 -inducing moments in the entire history of exploration. 00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:17.220 This is the Enrique moment. Yes. Remember Enrique, 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:19.500 the slave Magellan bought in Malacca all those 00:18:19.500 --> 00:18:21.900 years ago? He had traveled west with Magellan 00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:24.720 to Portugal, then to Spain, then all the way 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:26.160 across the Atlantic, then all the way across 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:28.400 the Pacific. He had gone the long way around. 00:18:28.859 --> 00:18:30.799 So when the fleet arrives in the Philippines, 00:18:31.099 --> 00:18:34.339 a small boat of locals approaches. Magellan tries 00:18:34.339 --> 00:18:37.440 to speak to them. Nothing. The Spanish soldiers 00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:42.140 try nothing. Then Enrique speaks. And they understood 00:18:42.140 --> 00:18:44.279 him. That gives me chills every single time I 00:18:44.279 --> 00:18:46.480 think about it. He was speaking a Malay dialect 00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:48.720 that was the trade language of the entire region. 00:18:48.779 --> 00:18:51.119 The locals replied they could communicate. You 00:18:51.119 --> 00:18:52.460 have to stop and think about the implications 00:18:52.460 --> 00:18:55.180 of that. Enrique had technically completed the 00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:58.269 circle. Linguistically, culturally, he was home. 00:18:58.509 --> 00:19:01.109 It proved the world was round in a way that no 00:19:01.109 --> 00:19:03.369 map ever could. They had reached the east by 00:19:03.369 --> 00:19:06.470 sailing west. And it's very likely that Enrique 00:19:06.470 --> 00:19:08.990 was the first person in history to culturally 00:19:08.990 --> 00:19:11.369 circumnavigate the globe. So with Enrique translating, 00:19:11.829 --> 00:19:14.450 Magellan starts making alliances. They move to 00:19:14.450 --> 00:19:17.210 the bigger island of Cebu. And things go surprisingly 00:19:17.210 --> 00:19:21.390 well at first. Almost. Too well. It was suspiciously 00:19:21.390 --> 00:19:24.529 easy. The ruler of Cebu, a man named Rajah Humabon, 00:19:24.609 --> 00:19:27.529 was a very savvy politician. He saw these Europeans 00:19:27.529 --> 00:19:29.809 with their steel armor and their loud boomsticks, 00:19:29.869 --> 00:19:31.809 and he saw an opportunity to use them against 00:19:31.809 --> 00:19:34.690 his own local rivals. And Magellan saw an opportunity, 00:19:34.869 --> 00:19:39.130 too. But his focus had shifted somehow. He wasn't 00:19:39.130 --> 00:19:40.970 acting like a merchant or an admiral anymore. 00:19:41.069 --> 00:19:44.430 He was acting more like a messiah. He became 00:19:44.430 --> 00:19:47.009 obsessed with evangelism, absolutely obsessed. 00:19:47.269 --> 00:19:49.529 He wanted to convert everyone he met to Christianity. 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:52.579 Humabon, likely for purely political reasons, 00:19:52.819 --> 00:19:55.279 agreed to convert. He was baptized as Carlos. 00:19:55.420 --> 00:19:57.920 His wife was baptized as Juana. And this is where 00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:00.259 the Santonino comes into the story. Yes. In a 00:20:00.259 --> 00:20:03.000 moment of what seems like genuine exchange, Magellan 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.640 gave the queen a small wooden statue of the child 00:20:05.640 --> 00:20:08.140 Jesus. And she accepted it with tears in her 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:10.420 eyes. That statue is still there, by the way. 00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:12.420 You can go to the Basilica in Cebu today and 00:20:12.420 --> 00:20:15.140 see it. It is the oldest Catholic relic in the 00:20:15.140 --> 00:20:17.259 entire Philippines. But this religious success, 00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:20.589 it went to Magellan's head. He started to believe 00:20:20.589 --> 00:20:22.849 he was invincible. He believed God was personally 00:20:22.849 --> 00:20:26.210 guiding his sword. It was hubris, pure and simple. 00:20:26.349 --> 00:20:28.789 He began ordering all the other local chiefs 00:20:28.789 --> 00:20:32.369 to convert and pay tribute, not just to Humabon, 00:20:32.430 --> 00:20:35.609 but to the king of Spain. He was completely upsetting 00:20:35.609 --> 00:20:38.250 the local balance of power. And that brings us 00:20:38.250 --> 00:20:41.250 to Mactan, a small island right across the channel 00:20:41.250 --> 00:20:43.769 from Cebu. The chief of Mactan was a man named 00:20:43.769 --> 00:20:46.720 Lapulapu. And Lapulapu was not having any of 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:49.859 it. He refused to bow to Humabon, who he saw 00:20:49.859 --> 00:20:52.079 as a rival, and he certainly refused to bow to 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:54.140 some foreign king he had never even met. And 00:20:54.140 --> 00:20:56.819 Magellan takes this as a personal insult. He 00:20:56.819 --> 00:20:59.160 took it as a direct challenge to his faith and 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:01.779 his authority. His own officers, even the Spanish 00:21:01.779 --> 00:21:04.299 captains who hated him, begged him not to go. 00:21:04.380 --> 00:21:06.380 They said, look, we are explorers, not soldiers. 00:21:06.599 --> 00:21:08.759 Let the locals handle their own politics. We 00:21:08.759 --> 00:21:11.240 need to get the spices and go home. But Magellan 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:14.019 insisted. He wanted to make a point. He wanted 00:21:14.019 --> 00:21:16.839 to show off his military superiority to impress 00:21:16.839 --> 00:21:19.980 his new ally, Humabon. So he made a series of 00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:21.819 tactical blunders that are just almost hard to 00:21:21.819 --> 00:21:24.240 believe. First, he decided to attack Mactan at 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:28.519 dawn. He took only 49 men. 49. 49 men. And he 00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:30.660 was facing a force that Pigafetta estimates was 00:21:30.660 --> 00:21:34.759 around 1 ,500 warriors. 49 against 1 ,500. The 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:38.680 math is suicidal. But Magellan believed one European 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:41.640 soldier with armor and a gun was worth a hundred 00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:44.940 locals. He was catastrophically wrong. And the 00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:47.579 terrain itself worked against him, too. Disastrously. 00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:51.400 He attacked at low tide. The bay at Mactan is 00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:53.920 filled with coral rocks and shallow water for 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:56.500 a long way out. The Spanish ships couldn't get 00:21:56.500 --> 00:21:58.420 close to the shore. Which means their cannons. 00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:01.039 Their biggest advantage, the ship's cannons, 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:04.450 were completely out of range. So the men had 00:22:04.450 --> 00:22:06.710 to get out of the boats and wade to shore. They 00:22:06.710 --> 00:22:09.069 had to wade through thigh -deep water for the 00:22:09.069 --> 00:22:11.630 length of two football fields just to reach the 00:22:11.630 --> 00:22:13.490 beach. By the time they got there, they were 00:22:13.490 --> 00:22:15.769 slow, they were wet, and they were exhausted. 00:22:16.069 --> 00:22:18.970 And Le Palapu's men were waiting. And they were 00:22:18.970 --> 00:22:21.589 smart. They had observed the Europeans. They 00:22:21.589 --> 00:22:23.849 realized the heads and torsos were armored, but 00:22:23.849 --> 00:22:26.049 the legs were mostly bare. So they aimed low. 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:28.880 They aimed for the legs. Pigafetta was there, 00:22:28.980 --> 00:22:30.759 fighting right next to Magellan. His account 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:33.440 is just visceral. He describes the warriors swarming 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:35.700 them. They weren't intimidated by the muskets, 00:22:35.700 --> 00:22:38.079 which were slow to reload and inaccurate at that 00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:40.640 range. They just rushed in. And Magellan gets 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:43.539 isolated from his men. He was the target. They 00:22:43.539 --> 00:22:45.880 recognized the captain. He was shot in the leg 00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:48.440 with a poison arrow. He tried to pull it out, 00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:50.140 but then he was hit in the face with a bamboo 00:22:50.140 --> 00:22:54.180 spear. Actually, a fire -hardened rattan lance. 00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:57.720 It sounds so chaotic and brutal. It was a brawl 00:22:57.720 --> 00:23:00.240 in the water. Magellan killed the attacker with 00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:02.180 his lance but the lance got stuck in the body. 00:23:02.380 --> 00:23:05.240 He tried to draw his sword but he couldn't because 00:23:05.240 --> 00:23:07.359 his sword arm had already been wounded by another 00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:10.170 spear. He was defenseless. And that's the end. 00:23:10.430 --> 00:23:12.569 Pigafetta writes, and I'm paraphrasing here, 00:23:12.710 --> 00:23:14.769 that a warrior struck him on the leg with a large 00:23:14.769 --> 00:23:17.190 cutlass, and that caused the captain to fall 00:23:17.190 --> 00:23:19.730 face down. And then they just rushed him with 00:23:19.730 --> 00:23:22.269 spears and swords until they killed our mirror, 00:23:22.490 --> 00:23:24.950 our light, our comfort, and our true guide. Our 00:23:24.950 --> 00:23:27.250 mirror, our light. You could just hear the heartbreak 00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:29.630 in Pigafetta's writing. He really loved Magellan. 00:23:29.789 --> 00:23:33.109 He did. But the locals didn't. They hacked him 00:23:33.109 --> 00:23:35.269 to pieces right there in the serve. And they 00:23:35.269 --> 00:23:37.940 never got the body back. No. Hugh Mabon offered 00:23:37.940 --> 00:23:41.079 a huge ransom copper, iron, anything they wanted. 00:23:41.259 --> 00:23:43.859 Lapu Lapu refused. He said he would keep the 00:23:43.859 --> 00:23:46.920 body as a trophy of his victory. To this day, 00:23:46.940 --> 00:23:49.980 there is no grave for Ferdinand Magellan. He's 00:23:49.980 --> 00:23:52.380 just part of the island of Mactan. So Magellan 00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:56.039 is dead. The invincible Europeans have been defeated 00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:59.140 by a local chief. The spell is completely broken. 00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:01.759 And this is where the story shifts gears into 00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:04.890 like a survival horror movie. Yes. Because now, 00:24:05.069 --> 00:24:07.470 Raja Humabon, the so -called Christian convert, 00:24:07.710 --> 00:24:10.009 he looks at these surviving Europeans and realizes 00:24:10.009 --> 00:24:12.309 they are not gods. They are just men and they 00:24:12.309 --> 00:24:14.769 are losing. He decides he needs to twitch sides 00:24:14.769 --> 00:24:16.970 before he gets dragged down with them. The betrayal. 00:24:17.670 --> 00:24:19.990 Humabon invited the remaining officers to a banquet 00:24:19.990 --> 00:24:22.450 ashore, supposedly to give them jewels to take 00:24:22.450 --> 00:24:25.210 back to the king of Spain. It was a trap. While 00:24:25.210 --> 00:24:27.369 they were eating, Humabon's men attacked. It 00:24:27.369 --> 00:24:29.630 was a complete massacre. And the men on the ships 00:24:29.630 --> 00:24:31.630 could hear the screaming. They heard the screaming 00:24:31.630 --> 00:24:33.410 and they saw the commotion, but they were too 00:24:33.410 --> 00:24:36.089 terrified to go ashore and help. They just cut 00:24:36.089 --> 00:24:39.180 the anchor cables and fled. They actually fired 00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:41.000 their cannons into the village as they left, 00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:43.599 killing locals and possibly even their own men 00:24:43.599 --> 00:24:46.180 who were still being held captive. It was just 00:24:46.180 --> 00:24:48.640 sheer panic. So now they're leaderless. They're 00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:51.599 down to about 115 men. They don't even have enough 00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:54.619 crew to sail all three ships. No. So they make 00:24:54.619 --> 00:24:56.640 a hard choice. They take the Concepcion, which 00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:59.440 was the oldest and leakiest ship, and they set 00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:02.299 it on fire. They transfer the supplies and the 00:25:02.299 --> 00:25:04.640 men to the Trinidad and the Victoria. And now, 00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:06.900 finally, the man who will actually finish the 00:25:06.900 --> 00:25:11.299 voyage steps up. wants of action, Elcano. Elcano 00:25:11.299 --> 00:25:13.440 takes command of the Victoria, and this is important. 00:25:13.700 --> 00:25:15.980 Elcano was one of the mutineers back at St. Julian. 00:25:16.099 --> 00:25:18.559 He was a Basque navigator, tough as nails, but 00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:21.140 he had no love for Magellan's ghost. His only 00:25:21.140 --> 00:25:23.839 goal now was survival. They eventually find the 00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:27.079 Spice Islands, the Moluccas, in November of 1521. 00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:30.140 They load up with cloves, but now they have a 00:25:30.140 --> 00:25:33.319 problem. The Trinidad is leaking. Badly. It was 00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:35.240 clear it couldn't make the long journey home, 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:38.400 so they made this fateful decision to split up. 00:25:38.829 --> 00:25:41.190 The Trinidad would stay behind for repairs and 00:25:41.190 --> 00:25:43.589 try to go back the way they came, across the 00:25:43.589 --> 00:25:46.190 Pacific to Panama, the Spanish route. And the 00:25:46.190 --> 00:25:48.769 Victoria, under Elcano, would try to make it 00:25:48.769 --> 00:25:51.710 home by sailing west. Which means sailing all 00:25:51.710 --> 00:25:55.660 the way around Africa. through Portuguese waters. 00:25:56.019 --> 00:25:58.000 This is the part of the story that often gets 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:01.099 skipped, but it was arguably the most dangerous 00:26:01.099 --> 00:26:04.579 leg of the entire voyage. It was. Elcano is sailing 00:26:04.579 --> 00:26:07.559 a single, rotting ship straight through enemy 00:26:07.559 --> 00:26:10.859 territory. He's carrying a cargo of spices that 00:26:10.859 --> 00:26:13.519 is worth an absolute fortune, but if the Portuguese 00:26:13.519 --> 00:26:16.180 catch him, he and his entire crew will be hanged 00:26:16.180 --> 00:26:18.269 as pirates. So it was a stealth mission. It's 00:26:18.269 --> 00:26:20.230 a ghost run. They had to avoid all the major 00:26:20.230 --> 00:26:21.809 ports. They couldn't stop at the Cape of Good 00:26:21.809 --> 00:26:23.829 Hope. They couldn't stop in Brazil. They had 00:26:23.829 --> 00:26:26.750 to sail nonstop from Timor all the way to Cape 00:26:26.750 --> 00:26:28.809 Verde. And the ship itself is just falling apart. 00:26:29.009 --> 00:26:31.450 The pumps were running 24 hours a day just to 00:26:31.450 --> 00:26:34.109 keep the Victoria from sinking. And, of course, 00:26:34.190 --> 00:26:37.319 the food ran out again. Pigafetta describes men 00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:39.900 begging Elcano to just pull into a Portuguese 00:26:39.900 --> 00:26:42.119 port and surrender because they would rather 00:26:42.119 --> 00:26:44.480 be in a dungeon than die of starvation at sea. 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:47.400 But Elcano refused. He was stubborn. He pushed 00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:49.720 them onward. They ate nothing but rice and water 00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:53.220 for months. 21 men died on that final leg alone. 00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:55.640 They were throwing bodies overboard almost every 00:26:55.640 --> 00:26:58.599 single day. But finally, finally, in September 00:26:58.599 --> 00:27:02.440 of 1522, a ship appears in the river at Seville. 00:27:02.750 --> 00:27:05.089 The Victoria, it looked like a wreck. The sails 00:27:05.089 --> 00:27:07.609 were in tatters. The hull was battered. And the 00:27:07.609 --> 00:27:09.529 men. How many actually made it back? Out of the 00:27:09.529 --> 00:27:12.509 original 270 men who left three years earlier, 00:27:12.730 --> 00:27:16.150 only 18 Europeans walked off that ship. 18. 18. 00:27:16.170 --> 00:27:18.109 They were so weak they could barely walk. They 00:27:18.109 --> 00:27:20.089 marched straight from the ship to a shrine to 00:27:20.089 --> 00:27:22.309 give thanks, holding candles, looking like skeletons. 00:27:22.369 --> 00:27:25.109 And Elcano is the hero. He gets the coat of arms 00:27:25.109 --> 00:27:27.930 from the king. He gets a globe with the Latin 00:27:27.930 --> 00:27:32.240 inscription, Primus Circumdedestimi. You first 00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:36.180 circumnavigated me. Yes. Elcano got all the glory, 00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:39.480 and he immediately used his new platform to absolutely 00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:42.799 trash Magellan's reputation. He told the king 00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:45.200 that Magellan was a tyrant, that the mutinies 00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:47.500 were all Magellan's fault, that the navigational 00:27:47.500 --> 00:27:50.299 errors were Magellan's fault. For a while, history 00:27:50.299 --> 00:27:52.480 was written by the survivor. But Magellan had 00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:54.579 a defender from beyond the grave. Pigafetta. 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:57.519 He was one of those 18 survivors, but he wasn't 00:27:57.519 --> 00:27:59.400 a captain, so he wasn't invited to the official 00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:02.140 debriefings. But he had his book. He traveled 00:28:02.140 --> 00:28:04.700 all around Europe, presenting his detailed journals 00:28:04.700 --> 00:28:07.460 to kings and queens, and eventually he published 00:28:07.460 --> 00:28:09.960 his account. And because Pigafetta was such a 00:28:09.960 --> 00:28:12.980 good writer, not just a sailor, his version is 00:28:12.980 --> 00:28:15.000 the one that ultimately stuck. His version was 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:17.599 filled with the human drama, the tragedy, and 00:28:17.599 --> 00:28:20.240 crucially... his deep admiration for Magellan. 00:28:20.440 --> 00:28:23.680 He portrayed Magellan as this flawed but brilliant 00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:26.680 hero and Elcano as a competent but ultimately 00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:29.440 uninspired subordinate. And over the centuries, 00:28:29.619 --> 00:28:31.779 Pigafetta's narrative won. That's why we know 00:28:31.779 --> 00:28:34.480 it as Magellan's voyage and not Elcano's voyage. 00:28:34.740 --> 00:28:36.720 It really is a lesson in the power of keeping 00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:39.759 a diary. Absolutely. The pen is mightier than 00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:41.759 the sword, especially when the guy with the sword 00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:44.640 dies halfway through the story. So looking back 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:47.180 at this whole deep dive. What is the real legacy 00:28:47.180 --> 00:28:49.839 here? Because on the surface, it seems like a 00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:52.700 complete disaster. They lost four of the five 00:28:52.700 --> 00:28:57.039 ships, 250 men, and their commander. Tactically, 00:28:57.099 --> 00:28:59.660 it was an unmitigated disaster. But scientifically, 00:28:59.980 --> 00:29:02.799 it changed everything. For one, they proved the 00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:05.240 Earth was round empirically, not just as a theory. 00:29:05.500 --> 00:29:08.240 But much more importantly, they revealed the 00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:11.180 true scale of our planet. The sheer size of the 00:29:11.180 --> 00:29:13.579 Pacific. That was the shock. No one in Europe 00:29:13.579 --> 00:29:15.480 understood that the Pacific Ocean covered one 00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:17.579 -third of the planet's surface. Magellan's voyage 00:29:17.579 --> 00:29:20.329 completely recalibrated the European mind. It 00:29:20.329 --> 00:29:22.289 showed them that the world was vastly larger 00:29:22.289 --> 00:29:24.849 and vastly more water than they had ever dared 00:29:24.849 --> 00:29:27.289 to imagine. It connected the globe in a continuous 00:29:27.289 --> 00:29:29.690 loop for the very first time. It did. It was 00:29:29.690 --> 00:29:31.569 the beginning of globalization, for better and 00:29:31.569 --> 00:29:33.809 for worse. Before we wrap up, I want to leave 00:29:33.809 --> 00:29:36.089 our listeners with one last thought. Something 00:29:36.089 --> 00:29:38.029 that always nags at me about this whole story. 00:29:38.250 --> 00:29:40.970 We talked about Enrique, the slave. Yes, the 00:29:40.970 --> 00:29:43.750 man from Malacca. So, the history books give 00:29:43.750 --> 00:29:46.410 the title of First Circumnavigator to Elcano. 00:29:47.190 --> 00:29:50.470 But if Enrique was indeed from the Malay archipelago, 00:29:50.589 --> 00:29:53.190 and he traveled west to Europe with Magellan 00:29:53.190 --> 00:29:55.630 years before, and then he traveled west again 00:29:55.630 --> 00:29:57.470 with the Armada all the way back to the Malay 00:29:57.470 --> 00:29:59.690 archipelago. Then he beat Elcano by about a year 00:29:59.690 --> 00:30:02.019 and a half. Exactly. When he stepped off that 00:30:02.019 --> 00:30:04.599 ship in Cebu and could speak to the locals, he 00:30:04.599 --> 00:30:07.319 had, for all practical purposes, circled the 00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:09.880 globe. It is a fascinating argument. We don't 00:30:09.880 --> 00:30:11.960 know what happened to him after the massacre 00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:14.099 at Cebu. He just disappears from the written 00:30:14.099 --> 00:30:17.240 record. But there is a very, very strong case 00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:19.579 to be made that the first person to circumnavigate 00:30:19.579 --> 00:30:22.819 the world wasn't a Portuguese captain or a Spanish 00:30:22.819 --> 00:30:25.759 navigator, but a Malay slave who just wanted 00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:28.049 to go home. Which would be the ultimate twist 00:30:28.049 --> 00:30:30.089 in a story that is already full of them. It would. 00:30:30.190 --> 00:30:32.490 It just reminds us that history is so often just 00:30:32.490 --> 00:30:34.710 a matter of who is holding the pen. And that's 00:30:34.710 --> 00:30:37.009 it for this deep dive into the chaotic, brutal 00:30:37.009 --> 00:30:39.849 reality of Magellan's voyage. We hope you will 00:30:39.849 --> 00:30:42.490 never look at a globe the same way again. Thanks 00:30:42.490 --> 00:30:44.569 for listening. Keep questioning the map.