By Team Herodotus

Why Explore – Personal

In the 16th century explorations, 6 out of 7 ships did not
return home, why lead or join an exploration?

• Curiosity
• Adventure
• Wealth
• Power
• Fame
• Social Mobility
 Why Explore – National
Explorations could well bring a country to a state of
Bankruptcy ,

• Gold, Gem, Silver,

Rubber, Coffee,
Tobacco, Spices
• Establish trade routes
• Colonize Lands
• Explore Sciences
• Extend a religion
• National Pride
 16th Century : An obsession with
Spices
• Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg, Cinnamon,
Saffron, Mace, Cloves….
• Spices transformed life and
culture
• Spices also served as a form of
currency
• Spices drove the world economy
• Key Players: England, Holland,
France, Spain, Portugal
• Like Oil today, Spices became
intertwined with exploration, wars
and imperialism.
• Early Pioneer : Marco Polo
 Early Milestones
• 1420 Sagres School of
Navigation is founded
• 1434 Gil Eanes rounds Cape
of Bojadore
• 1488 Diaz returns from Cape
of Good Hope
• Early exploration strategy :
Coasting
 Exploration Continues
• 1492 Columbus reaches
America (for Spain)
• 1494 Pope Alexander divides
the New World between Spain
and Portugal
• 1498 Vasco De Gamma
reaches India
• 1500 Cabral reaches Brazil
• 1511 Albuquerque conquers
Moluccas (Spice Islands) and
founds the Portuguese Eastern
Empire
 The Problem Defined
• Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific
Ocean (1513) along with the Papal
Bull, gives Spain a tremendous
motivation to reach the Spice
Islands going west. A Passage had
to be found
• The Problem stated - To find an
east – west passage you go South
along the American Coast until –
– You find a Strait, or
– You reach the end of the
Continent, if there is one and turn,
North West.
 Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man
• Magellan was born c.1480 in northern
Portugal.
• Of noble parentage, he became a
page at the Portuguese court.
• In 1505 he sailed for India under Francisco de
ALMEIDA.
• He apparently took part in fighting on the
East African coast and in the great
Portuguese naval victory over the Arabs off
Diu (1509) in the Indian Ocean.
• He is also believed to have served in the fleet
commanded by Alfonso de ALBUQUERQUE that
captured Malacca and gained control of the
Strait of Malacca in 1511.
• Magellan returned to Portugal in 1512 and
fought in Morocco the next year. Wounded
there, he petitioned the Portuguese crown to
increase his pension.
• His request was refused, and in 1517 he went to
Spain to offer his services to King Charles I (later
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V).
 The Journey begins
• With the Portuguese cosmographer
Rui Faleiro, Magellan now proposed
to the Spanish an expedition to find a
passage through to this ocean and to
sail west to the Moluccas, thus
proving that the Spice Islands lay on
the Spanish side of the line of
demarcation.
• King Charles approved the plan, and
after a year of preparations the
expedition left Seville on Sept. 20,
1519.
• The five ships, carrying about 270
men of many nationalities, stopped in
the Canary Islands and reached the
Bay of Rio de Janeiro
on December 13.
• They then sailed south, probing the
estuary of the Rio de la Plata for the
passage.
 The breakthrough into the Pacific
• September 20, 1519: The armada leaves
Seville

• December 1519: Guanabara Bay (Rio de

Janeiro)

• January 1520: Rio de La Plata (Buenos Aires)

• March 1520: Port San Julian (winter camp)

• April 1520: Mutiny (crushed)

• Winter 1520:The Santiago is shipwrecked

• October 1521: Discovery of a strait

• November 1521: The San Antonio deserts

and returns to Spain

• November 1521: Crossing the strait

• November 28, 1521:Three remaining ships

reach the Pacific Ocean.
 The Magellan Strait
• A Maze of
numerous false
turns.
• The Passage
takes 38 days.
 The Pacific Voyage
• Five months of
sailing, constant
battle with starvation
and scurvy
• March 1522 arriving
at the Philippines
• April 27, 1522
Magellan is killed on
Mactan island
The Complete Journey
 Victory at Last
“On September 6, 1522, a battered ship
appeared on the horizon near the port
of Seville, Spain. Her tattered sails
flailed in the breeze, her rigging had
rotted away, the sun had bleached her
colors, and storms have gouged her sides.
The vessel was manned by a skeleton
Crew of 18 sailors, all severely
Malnourished. Most lacked the strength to
walk or speak. Their tongues were swollen,
And their bodies covered with painful boils. Their captain was dead, as were all
their officers and pilots.
The Victoria – this crumbling ship with its ghostly crew -- has accomplished
what no other ship has ever done before. By sailing west until they reached
the east, and then sailing on in the same direction, they had fulfilled an
ambition as old as human imagination:
The first circumnavigation of the globe.” From the first page of the book “Over the Edge of the
world” by Laurence Bergreen
A Replica of the ship “Victoria” built in 1992 is shown in the picture
 Thanks for watching the
presentation patiently
• Team Members in Alphabetical Order
– Aditya U.R
– Aravind
– Arun S
– Arun S Srivatsan
– Ashwin S Sudarshan
– Hariharan
– Ishwar Suresh
– Manasvini
– Mohammed
– Siddarth
– Tarun