Who completed the first expedition to circumnavigate the world after Ferdinand Magellan’s death?

Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the first expedition to circumnavigate the world after Ferdinand Magellan’s death.

Magellan commanded the expedition when it left Spain in 1519, but he was killed in the Philippines in 1521. Elcano then became the captain of the surviving ship, Victoria, which continued westward across the Indian Ocean and around Africa.

Victoria returned to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, on 6 September 1522, completing the first recorded circumnavigation. Only 18 of the approximately men who had departed returned on that ship, after a journey lasting nearly three years.

The achievement is often casually attributed to Magellan, but he did not complete the voyage himself. Elcano received a coat of arms from Charles I of Spain bearing the motto “Primus circumdedisti me,” meaning “You were the first to go around me.”