With no long-term weather forecasting, no navigational aids save the sextant that relied on clear skies, and only rudimentary food preservation techniques, Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan needed every bit the five ships give to him by Spain to try where Columbus had failed, and open a passage to the lucrative Asian market, the “Spice Islands”. It didn’t help that with Columbus’ discovery there was now an entire new continent standing in the way.

On this day, August 10, in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan sailed out from Seville, Spain on an expedition that unwittingly circled the globe, the first one ever to accomplish such a feat.

The first sign of trouble appeared early in Magellan’s voyage, when off the coast of Brazil the crew of one ship mutinied and wrecked it. A second ship defected after Magellan crossed through a narrow waterway near the tip of South America, reaching the Pacific Ocean, which Magellan christened in honor of its calmness relative to the stormy Atlantic. Magellan himself was the next casualty, as he took sides an ill-advised war in the Philippines and was felled by a poisoned arrow.