Which explorer led the first expedition to circumnavigate Earth, completed in 1522 after his death?

Ferdinand Magellan led the first expedition to circumnavigate Earth, although it was completed in 1522 after his death.

Magellan, a Portuguese navigator sailing for Spain, left Seville in 1519 with five ships. His expedition sought a western route to the Spice Islands. In 1520, the fleet passed through the strait at the southern tip of South America now called the Strait of Magellan, then entered the ocean he named the Pacific.

Magellan was killed in the Philippines at the Battle of Mactan in 1521. The surviving expedition, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, continued westward. The ship Victoria returned to Spain in September 1522 with only a small number of survivors, completing the first documented circumnavigation.

Magellan therefore did not personally circle the globe. The achievement belongs to the expedition as a whole, especially the crew that survived the voyage. The journey provided practical evidence of Earth’s global scale and the vastness of the Pacific.