Magellan finds the strait
1520 · Event
Behind a cape sighted on the feast of St Ursula opens the labyrinth Magellan promised: 350 miles of channels between glaciers, threaded in 38 days without charts. One ship deserts for home mid-passage; the rest emerge onto an ocean so calm he names it the Pacific — and weeps.
On these timelines: Magellan's Voyage, Age of Exploration, Spain, Master, Latin America
More from Magellan's Voyage
- Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation (1519)
- Magellan killed at Mactan (1521)
- The Victoria limps home (1522)
- The five ships sail (1519)
- The Pacific crossing (1520)
- Mutiny at Port St Julian (1520)
- Charles V backs Magellan's westward gamble (1518)
- Pigafetta's account of the first circumnavigation (1525)
Around 1520
- The Reformation (1517)
- Columbus reaches the Americas (1492)
- English Reformation (1533)
- Eighty Years' War / Dutch Revolt (1568)
- Spanish conquest of the Incas (1532)
- Spanish Reconquista last campaign (1482)
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519)
- French Wars of Religion (1562)
- Luther's 95 Theses (1517)
- Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508)