Why magellan explored

His parents died when he was still a boy and he became a court page in Lisbon. In , he enlisted in the fleet of the Portuguese viceroy to the Indies, and spent the following years involved in a series of Portuguese expeditions in India and Africa. In , he was with the fleet that conquered Malacca on the Malay Peninsula , thus gaining control of the most important trade routes in the region.

He also explored the islands of present-day Indonesia as far east as the Moluccas also known as the Spice Islands. In , Magellan returned to Lisbon, and the following year, he was wounded during an expedition to Morocco, which left him with a permanent limp.

After a disagreement with the Portuguese king, in Magellan went to Spain to try and enlist the Spanish king's support for an expedition to reach the Moluccas by sailing westwards. The Spanish wanted a share in the valuable spice trade from the Moluccas, but the Portuguese controlled the eastwards route round southern Africa. Magellan was successful and in September set out with a fleet of five vessels.

Since spices could not be cultivated in cold and arid Europe, no effort was spared to discover the quickest sea route to the Spice Islands. Portugal and Spain led the competition for early control over this critical commodity.

Europeans had reached the Spice Islands by sailing east, but none had yet to sail west from Europe to reach the other side of the globe.

Magellan was determined to be the first to do so. By now an experienced seaman, Magellan approached King Manuel of Portugal to seek his support for a westward voyage to the Spice Islands. The king refused his petition repeatedly. In , a frustrated Magellan renounced his Portuguese nationality and relocated to Spain to seek royal support for his venture. When Magellan arrived in Seville in October , he had no connections and spoke little Spanish. Just 18 years old at the time, King Charles I granted his support to Magellan, who in turn promised the young king that his westward sea voyage would bring immeasurable riches to Spain.

On August 10, Magellan bade farewell to his wife and young son, neither of whom he would ever see again, and the Armada De Moluccas set sail. Magellan commanded the lead ship Trinidad and was accompanied by four other ships: the San Antonio , the Conception , the Victoria and the Santiago. The fleet reached South America a little more than one month later.

There the ships sailed southward, hugging the coast in search of the fabled strait that would allow passage through South America. Magellan quickly quelled the uprising, executing one of the captains and leaving another mutinous captain behind. Meanwhile Magellan had sent the Santiago to explore the route ahead, where it was shipwrecked during a terrible storm.

With those disastrous events behind them, the fleet left Port San Julian five months later when fierce seasonal storms abated. On October 21, Magellan finally entered the strait that he had been seeking and that came to bear his name. The voyage through the Strait of Magellan was treacherous and cold, and many sailors continued to mistrust their leader and grumble about the dangers of the journey ahead.

In the early days of the navigation of the strait, the crew of the San Antonio forced its captain to desert, and the ship turned and fled across the Atlantic Ocean back to Spain.

They were the first known Europeans to see the great ocean, which Magellan named Mar Pacifico, the Pacific Ocean, for its apparent peacefulness, a stark contrast to the dangerous waters of the strait from which he had just emerged. In fact, extremely rough waters are not uncommon in the Pacific Ocean, where tsunamis, typhoons and hurricanes have done serious damage to the Pacific Islands and Pacific Rim nations throughout history.

Little was known about the geography beyond South America at that time, and Magellan optimistically estimated that the trip across the Pacific would be rapid. In fact, it took three months for the fleet to make its way slowly across the vast Mar Pacifico. Magellan was now closer than ever to reaching the Spice Islands, but when the Cebu asked for his help in fighting their neighbors on the island of Mactan, Magellan agreed. He assumed he would command a swift victory with his superior European weapons, and against the advice of his men, Magellan himself led the attack.

The Mactanese fought fiercely, and Magellan fell when he was shot with a poison arrow. Ferdinand Magellan died on April 27, It is possible that Magellan sailed as far as the Moluccas, islands in Indonesia, then called the Spice Islands. The Moluccas were the original source of some of the world's most valuable spices, including cloves and nutmeg. The conquest of spice-rich countries was, as a result, a source of much European competition. While serving in Morocco, in , Magellan was wounded and walked the remainder of his life with a limp.

After his injury, he was falsely accused of trading illegally with the Moors, and despite all of his service to Portugal, and his many pleas to the king, any further offers of employment were withheld him. In , Magellan moved to Seville, Spain, to offer his skills to the Spanish court. His departure from Portugal came at an opportune time. In the three years following his departure from Portugal, Magellan had religiously studied all of the most recent navigation charts.

Like all navigators of the time, he understood from Greek texts that the world was round. He believed that he could find a shorter route to the Spice Islands by sailing west, across the Atlantic Ocean, around South America and across the Pacific. On September 20, , he set out with a fleet of five fully supplied ships, but hardly adequate to sail the distances he proposed.

The fleet sailed first to Brazil and then down the coast of South America to Patagonia. There an attempted mutiny took place and one of the ships was wrecked. Despite the setback, the crew continued on with the four remaining vessels. By October , Magellan and his men had entered what is now called the Strait of Magellan.

It took them over a month to pass through the strait, during which time the master of one of the ships deserted and sailed back home. The remaining ships sailed across the Pacific Ocean.