Ferdinand Magellan (a Portuguese sea captain sailing for Spain) had an important goal when he left the town

of Seville on the 10th of August, 1519: Find a westward route to the Spice (Maluku) Islands. He did not personally achieve that goal, but his crew (led by Juan Sebastian Elcano) did. Despite a grossly inaccurate map, and ubelievably wretched conditions aboard ship, remnants of Magellan's crew circumnavigated the world in a ship called Victoria. Their expedition lasted about three years. Magellan (1480-1521) never planned to sail around the globe. His assignment - to reach the Spice Islands, also known as the Moluccas (or Maluku Islands), thereby proving they belonged to Spain already had more-than-enough challenges. One of the most significant problems was to find a way (safer than sailing round Cape Horn) to reach the Pacific (via the Atlantic) Ocean. In October of 1520, he and his men found such a passageway - between Chile and Tierra del Fuego - known today as the Strait (or Straits) of Magellan. A month later - on the 28th of November, 1520 - Magellan's expedition reached the Pacific Ocean. Because the water seemed so calm (especially compared to the Atlantic), Magellan gave the vast body of water a name which means "peaceful sea." Five ships originally began the expedition - Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepcin, Victoria and Santiago but onlyVictoria made it back to the starting point. Magellan's boats were caravels. Hard to sail, and very uncomfortable, they were not like modern ships. Making the journey even more difficult, the crew dealt with very bad Atlantic weather. Paul Rose, who made the journey in a modern replica of a Magellan caravel, observes: "It must have felt as though the storms were never going to end." St. Elmo's Fire appeared to Magellan and his crew. Because this phenomenon usually appears at the end of a storm, the men were convinced they had witnessed divine intervention. Sailing on the eastern side of South America, Magellan's expedition made landfall at a place later known as Rio de Janeiro. Soon after, they reached the edge of the known world. As far down the coast of South America as any westerner had ever been, Magellan was looking for a passage to the "South Sea." Thinking he was in the right spot, he sailed into the River Plate estuary. It was a disaster, causing a three-month delay. Determined to keep sailing, Magellan still believed he would find a passageway, linking the Atlantic to the as-yet-unnamed Pacific. Many of his men disagreed the enormous effort was worth it. Cold, hungry and no longer believing in their captain, some of the men started a mutiny. Putting down the mutiny, Magellan settled-in for the winter. One of his ships - the Santiago - was wrecked on coastal rocks. After seven months, waiting for winter to pass, Magellan resumed his quest for a passageway linking the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Then ... on the 21st of October, 1520, the men discovered an inlet in which the water tasted salty. Might this finally be the right way? Magellan had, in fact, discovered the Strait which later bore his name - but no one knew it. A circular place, it was surrounded by mountains. Would there actually be a way out? The San Antonio, in an act of rebellion, turned round and headed back to Spain. The ship carried many of the expedition's provisions - a devastating blow for Magellan.

It took more than a month for Magellan to make it through the 530-kilometer strait. Weeping for joy, he realized he'd found the fabled passage when his ships sailed into the Pacific on the 28th of November, 1520. So important was this discovery - a water passage linking the two oceans - that the Strait of Magellan was continuously used by commercial ships for the next four hundred years. It wasn't until the man-made Panama Canal that the Strait of Magellan was replaced by a shorter passageway. Because the ocean on the western end of the strait was so calm, Magellan named it the "Pacific" - the peaceful sea. What he hadn't counted on - what he could not have known - was its huge expanse. The expedition's three remaining ships sailed ... and sailed ... and sailed ... with no land in sight. Magellan's entire crew - on all three remaining ships - were devastated by hunger, thirst and foreboding. Their food and water were contaminated, and the men were reduced to eating rats. Still they sailed into the unknown ... until they finally saw land. Despite inaccurate maps, Magellan had led his ships to the place we know as the Philippines. These lush lands must have seemed like a paradise to the sailors, and Magellan claimed them for Spain. It was the beginning of colonization. Then ... Magellan made a fateful decision. He decided to take sides in a battle between local chiefs, opposing a leader who had refused both Christianity and submission to Spanish rule. Grossly outnumbered, Magellan thought he and his men would prevail because they had superior weapons. Covered with armor, except for his feet, Magellan was wounded in the foot by a spear. The downed leader was slaughtered, his body never recovered. Magellan had nearly reached his goal - the Spice Islands - but his crew decided to continue the journey without him. Led by Juan Sebastian Elcano (also known as Juan Sebastian Del Cano), they reached the lush volcanic islands soon after their leader had perished. Although spices seem common and ordinary today, at the time of the Magellan Expedition, spices were worth - pound for pound - more than gold. To make good on their spice cargo, the two remaining ships (the Trinidad and the Victoria) had to return to Spain. The Trinidad sailed east, while the Victoria continued sailing west - over a vast expanse of uncharted waters. Sick with scurvy - again - many of Victoria's crew died. Had the men only known that their cargo (particularly the cloves) contained the very thing they needed - Vitamin C - to stave-off scurvy, they could have stayed more healthy. The writer of the ship's log, and the new captain, were able to stay well - and lived to tell the story of the world's first circumnavigation. While the Trinidad had been captured (and destroyed) by the Portuguese, the Victoria returned to Spain. On reaching Seville, she had a crew of just eighteen. Later, Elcano attempted a second trip to the Spice Islands - but he died of scurvy at sea. And the crew who completed the long, arduous journey - never realized the profits they'd hoped to receive when the spice-cargo was sold. The King of Spain appropriated those sums for himself - to pay for the loss of the other ships. Today, Ferdinand Magellan is celebrated for making the first circumnavigation of the world, although he

died before that happened. His quest, to reach the Spice Islands by way of a westward route, was completed - then expanded - by his succesor, Juan Sebastain Elcano.

Five hundred years ago a stricken ship, the Victoria, limped into the port of Seville. Its crew of 18 were all that was left of the 265 men that started out three years earlier. They were half-dead from starvation and disease, having just completed a voyage that would change the course of history and profoundly shape the way we live today. Victoria was part of a fleet of five ships commanded by Ferdinand Magellan. His quest was to get to the unimaginable riches of the Spice Islands through the New World, making Spain the richest country in the world. And of course Magellan would have the fame and share the wealth. Magellan never planned to, wanted to, or indeed did, sail around the world. When he set off on this voyage, the plan was to get to the Spice Islands and then return the same way back. Yet, still today in many countries, it is Magellan who gets the credit for being the first person to circumnavigate. But the reality - as I found out in Spain while making the BBC's Voyages of Discovery series - is that it was another great man, Juan Sebastian Elcano, who has the honour of being the first circumnavigator. The Portuguese controlled the known route eastwards to the Spice Islands so Magellan had to pioneer a new route westwards. No-one had ever sailed this way before, and the map was worse than blank - it was wrong and off by over 11,000km. The fleet of five ships set off across the Atlantic. It was a hair-raising passage. After months of searching the east coast of South America, Magellan was faced with the fact that he could not find a passage west. He was forced to endure a brutal winter which included a starvation diet, freezing conditions, mutiny and murder. The Nao Victoria, a perfect replica of the original Victoria, completed a re-creation of the journey this year. I was lucky to be able to join her on the Mediterranean passage, which turned out to be much more challenging than I expected.

As an experienced sailor of modern boats, I was amazed by the amount of rolling she did and the hard physical labour needed to sail her. Even in slight waves, we rolled so much that the deck was always awash. We could hide in our bunks below deck; but the original sailors had to sleep on deck, with cargo and rigging being the only possible shelter. It must have been desperate.

After surviving the winter and many months of fruitless searching, Magellan and his men were finally rewarded - they found the passage through to the other side of South America. It was a fantastic achievement. Magellan named the ocean the Pacific - the Peaceful Sea. He thought the hardest part of the voyage was over, and anticipated a short cruise to the riches of the Spice Islands. But the combination of bad maps, bad calculations and the fact that he was the first European to be in these waters, turned this "short cruise" into a 100day nightmare of starvation, scurvy and death. Magellan could not have even imagined the scale of the Pacific; it encompasses one-third of the Earth's surface, it's twice the size of the Atlantic Ocean and extends over an area greater than all the dry land on the planet. Eventually, the fleet arrived in the Philippines. Even today, an annual celebration marks this event - but not in the way you might imagine, or indeed as Magellan would have wanted (it was in the Philippines that he died in battle). I attended this year's celebration and I was shocked by the ferocity of the ceremony. It is a passionate and bloody display that includes the slaughter of chickens and pigs. A powerful celebration of a great victory. It became important to me to tell the true, barely credible story of this amazing voyage of discovery. No wonder the Victoria continues to receive honours to this day. In fact, a massive unexplored crater on Mars has been named Victoria Crater by the Mars Rover science team in recognition of the 1519-1522 circumnavigation by the Victoria.