Which explorer led the expedition that first circumnavigated Earth, although he died before it ended?

Ferdinand Magellan led the expedition that first circumnavigated Earth, although he died before it ended.

Magellan’s Spanish expedition sailed in 1519 with five ships seeking a westward route to the Spice Islands. The fleet crossed the Atlantic, passed through the strait now called the Strait of Magellan, and entered the Pacific Ocean. The voyage demonstrated the enormous size of the Pacific and created a practical route between the Atlantic and Pacific through South America.

Magellan was killed in the Philippines during the Battle of Mactan on 27 April 1521. He therefore did not personally complete the circumnavigation. Juan Sebastián Elcano took command of the surviving ship Victoria, which returned to Spain in 1522 with a small number of crew members.

The expedition is often described as the first circumnavigation, but it was not simply a story of European discovery: it depended on existing maritime knowledge and involved violent encounters, colonization, and imperial competition. The voyage also produced an apparent one-day calendar discrepancy that helped inspire later explanations of the International Date Line.