Which expedition completed the first circumnavigation of Earth?

The Magellan expedition completed the first recorded circumnavigation of Earth.

Ferdinand Magellan led the Spanish expedition that departed in 1519 with five ships. Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521, so he did not complete the voyage himself. Juan Sebastián Elcano took command of the remaining ship, Victoria, which returned to Spain in September 1522.

The expedition crossed the Atlantic, passed through the strait now called the Strait of Magellan, crossed the Pacific Ocean, and continued through the Indian Ocean around Africa. Only the Victoria and 18 of the original approximately crew members completed the return voyage.

The journey provided dramatic practical evidence of Earth’s global scale and revealed how vast the Pacific was. Francis Drake later completed another famous circumnavigation, but his voyage began in 1577 and was not the first recorded one.