Illustration by James Bennett from Dream by Susan V. Bosak

Magellan led the first round-the-world voyage.

The Spanish king asked him to find a western route to Asia. Magellan set off with five ships and sailed down the coast of South America until he found a passage to the Pacific, the Strait of Magellan.

On his way toward Asia, he was killed in the Philippines. Only one of his ships returned.

His voyage proved definitively the roundness of the earth, it revolutionized ideas of the relative proportions of land and water, and it revealed the Americas as a new world, separate from Asia.

Said Ferdinand Magellan:

"The church says the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church."

Recommended Reading:

Ferdinand Magellan: First Explorer Around the World by Arlene Bourgeois Molzahn. Enslow, 2003. Beginning with an interest-capturing account of one of Magellan's battles, the story backtracks to describe the explorer's early life and then follows his expedition around the world. Illustrations, photos, and maps come from various sources.

Magellan: A Voyage Around the World by Fiona MacDonald and Mark Bergin (illus). Franklin Watts, 1998. A focus on the expedition and the time in which it took place.

To the Edge of the World by Michele Torrey. Knopf, 2003. In this seafaring adventure, a fictional orphan, Mateo, joins Magellan as a cabin boy on the voyage that pioneered the Strait of Magellan and completed the first trip around the world.

Who Was Ferdinand Magellan? by Sydelle Kramer and Elizabeth Wolf (illus). Grosset & Dunlap, 2004. Black-and-white line drawings illustrate Magellan's life and voyage, with sidebars and a timeline that enhance readers' understanding of the period.