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00:12500 years ago, an unrecognisable ship arrived in the port of Seville.
00:23Its crew was reduced to just 18 emaciated and starving men.
00:38But this ship just completed a voyage of huge importance, it changed the course of history,
00:47it shaped the way we live, even today.
00:53It was 1522 and the Victoria had just become the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
01:06This voyage opened up the last great ocean, created new trade routes and revealed the
01:12true scale of our planet.
01:18It was a triumph of the human spirit, an epic tale of courage and endurance, starvation
01:25and mutiny, heroism and death.
01:33And it turned one man, Ferdinand Magellan, into one of the most celebrated explorers in the
01:39history of the world.
01:43But behind the legend of this great voyage of discovery, lies another story.
02:01UNO, DOS, TRES
02:03UNO, DOS, TRES
02:07UNO, DOS, TRES
02:08This is the Neo Victoria.
02:10The perfect replica of one of Magellan's ships.
02:13You lost me timing then.
02:16Concentrate...
02:17UNO, DOS, TRES
02:18But Paul, it is one, two, three!
02:21Okay!
02:22UNO, DOS, TRES
02:22Thank you Jose!
02:24That's Jose as the ship's captain.
02:25He's figured out already, I can't count.
02:29UNO, DOS, TRES
02:33Nearly 500 years on, this modern replica is circling the globe itself to celebrate one
02:40of the most challenging voyages of maritime history and the men who made that journey.
02:48As an adventure of myself, I've climbed on Everest, spent 20 years in the most remote
02:55polar regions, yet the hardships I've known are nothing, just absolutely nothing compared
03:03to what those men experienced.
03:10Magellan's epic voyage is legendary, yet the real story is rarely told.
03:16He never intended to circumnavigate the world, but a series of extraordinary events turned
03:22what was an ambitious voyage into a truly historic one.
03:33Magellan's great voyage started on the 21st of September, 1519, when they set sail from
03:40Spain into the unknown.
03:46And the ship's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, recorded the moment.
03:57Find the right page.
04:01And he wrote this.
04:05The fleet, having been furnished with all that was necessary for it, and having in
04:11the five ships people of diverse nations to the number of 241 in all, was ready to depart.
04:18And firing all the artillery, we set sail.
04:37For Magellan, the captain general, this voyage was the realisation of a dream that had been
04:43five years in the making.
04:47This tough and determined Portuguese was taking the biggest gamble of his life.
04:54Fame, fortune and survival itself depended on the outcome of the expedition.
05:09Among the officers of the fleet was an ambitious ship's master called Juan Sebastian Elcano.
05:17This young Spaniard was to play a crucial role in the epic voyage.
05:26Magellan's goal was purely commercial, to find a Spanish trade route to the world's most precious commodity.
05:36Spices.
05:38In the 16th century, they were worth more than gold.
05:42But for Spain, they were unreachable.
05:48In 1494, the Pope had divided the world between the two greatest sea powers on Earth.
05:56Spain had the trading rights over the western half of the world,
06:00while Portugal controlled the east,
06:03and with it the only known route to the unimaginable riches of the Spice Islands,
06:08the modern-day Moluccas.
06:17Magellan's bold idea was to find a westward route to the Spice Islands through Spanish waters.
06:24It was an incredible plan.
06:26Such a sea route had never been sailed before,
06:29and no-one even knew if it existed.
06:33If he could find the elusive route, Spain would become the richest nation in the world,
06:38and Magellan would share that wealth.
06:42He commissioned a fleet of five robust trading ships,
06:45Carrox,
06:47specially designed to navigate the treacherous waters of the open seas.
06:57Well, are you sure you're taking the correct route?
07:00I think I'm doing the right. Look, it says 260, nearly.
07:04It's close in a global context, it's not right.
07:07Yeah, in an Earth context.
07:09Yeah, what do you think?
07:11Doing fine.
07:14The steering mechanism was simple.
07:19The rudder connected to a wheel that was attached to a long wooden shaft.
07:28Holding the course was all about brute strength.
07:31I'm actually on course at the minute, but it's not very easy.
07:35You know, on a modern boat, there's a lot of feedback between the rudder and the tiller, or the wheel.
07:40This thing's called a whip-staff arrangement, and it's not easy to stay on course at all.
07:44Even in calm conditions like this.
07:48I'm on course at the minute.
07:52The course that Magellan was planning would take him beyond chartered waters into the unknown.
07:57It was a journey that many believed was impossible.
08:00Yes, okay.
08:03Here, I'm just talking about Magellan.
08:06They're off on the fleet on this great journey to get all these incredibly valuable spices.
08:11I just want to talk to you about how easy or hard it must have been to get them.
08:16Well, very, very difficult, because obviously there were no charts of any descriptions.
08:23And I understand it wasn't even on the maps those days.
08:26No, there was no maps, proper maps really.
08:28It was bigger than the map here, which is from about the same period.
08:32Okay.
08:32As you can see, this is a bit of the Brazilian coast.
08:36A few of the islands in the Caribbean already plotted by Columbus and his followers.
08:42And then this blob of land, which it finishes here.
08:46Oh, crikey.
08:48South of Cape of Good Hope, but not much.
08:52So this was an unknown area in those days for the map makers.
08:57That's amazing, wasn't it?
08:59Basically completely unknown.
09:00What a great act of faith that there might even be a way through it.
09:11It really was an incredible leap of faith.
09:14Because as far as anybody knew, Magellan's proposed route was completely blocked by the vast South American continent.
09:25According to accounts from the time, Magellan claimed that he knew of a passage below the landmass of South America.
09:33And that would take the fleet through to the Spice Islands.
09:37Or maybe he did know.
09:39Or maybe the whole thing was nothing but a supreme gamble.
09:44Whatever the truth, he kept it close to his chest.
09:57Magellan never revealed the source of his belief in the existence of a passage.
10:01But it probably came from rumours that abounded in the secretive world of 16th century navigators.
10:11The captain general did not wholly declare the voyage which he wished to make.
10:16Lest the people from astonishment and fear refused to accompany him on so long a voyage as he had in
10:22mind to undertake.
10:24In view of the great and violent storms of the ocean sea, whither he would go.
10:32The decision to keep the crew in the dark was extremely dangerous.
10:36And it would come close to destroying the entire mission.
10:41So what was it about this obsessive and determined man that drove him to take such an incredible risk?
10:51Manuel Villas-Boas is a direct descendant of Magellan and a bit of an expert on his famous ancestor.
10:58In trying to understand the man himself, how would you describe him?
11:04A man of contrast, I would say. He was physically short, very sure of himself, not an assuming man.
11:13He is not a man that one sees bragging about his aristocracy or anything like that.
11:18A man of little words, a few words, a man who obviously paid attention to his family and cared about
11:25his family.
11:28Very little more is known. The man disappears behind the project.
11:35One thing that is known about Magellan is that he spent eight years as a soldier with the Portuguese fleet
11:41in the Indian Ocean.
11:44Here, he earned a reputation as a fighter, a risk-taker and a glory seeker.
11:50But returned home to less than a hero's welcome.
11:55He arrives back in Portugal and he's slighted. He's slighted by the court.
12:01And he says, OK, I've been slighted. I'm going to do something which will prove these people completely wrong.
12:09I'm going to finish the task that Columbus started and didn't finish.
12:16And in the process, emulate what Vasco de Germer had done around Africa and would do around South America.
12:24In Magellan's youth, these two great navigators had risked everything in the search for spices and earned a place in
12:31history.
12:33And they inspired Magellan to claim for himself the last great untried sea voyage around South America.
12:47Achieving this extraordinary ambition became his obsession.
12:55But he must have had some self-doubt.
13:01Leaders of such nature and of such expeditions are lonely by definition. These are lonely jobs.
13:07I don't think he ever let anybody understand that he was not quite sure exactly of the existence of the
13:13passage.
13:16When finally he led the fleet south, it was the first time he had ever captained a ship.
13:23His first challenge was the notorious Atlantic, an ocean that had claimed many lives.
13:36On October the 3rd, 1519, the weather worsened.
13:43Many furious squalls of wind and currents of water struck us head on.
13:49And as we could not advance, and in order that the ships might not be wrecked, all the sails were
13:55struck.
13:56And in this manner did we wander hither and yon on the sea, waiting for the tempest to cease.
14:02For it was very furious.
14:16I've been at sea in some really foul weather, but it's always been on a modern boat.
14:21And with that modern safety net that we have,
14:25satellite phones, satellite communication, satellite GPS,
14:31even emergency beacons, you press the button and you can get some help.
14:36Old boats like this, Magellan's boats, they had none of that.
14:40The sense of risk must have been absolutely enormous.
14:50On a ship like this, in big seas, there's a lot of rolling going on.
14:55They're quite rounded, these hulls, like an upturned shell.
14:59And they just roll a lot.
15:02I mean, it's not bad weather at the moment.
15:05Heaven knows what it would be like in a really big storm.
15:10Magellan was sailing through some of the most dangerous seas in the world.
15:15It's a great day sailing for me, it's exciting.
15:18But for Magellan's men crossing the Atlantic, conditions would have been much worse than this.
15:22And it would have been truly frightening.
15:24It must have felt as if the storms were never going to end.
15:29The ships were already showing signs of wear and tear, they were getting battered.
15:34In one particular storm, the wind was so strong that even with the sails rolled up, furled up,
15:40the wind got in there and ripped the sails to shreds.
15:45And of course, Magellan was passionate about this voyage, he's a driven man.
15:50But the men were at the wit's end, exhausted and the sense of fear of the unknown.
15:58It's no surprise to me, they began praying for some kind of divine intervention.
16:05And you know, that's exactly what they did get.
16:14During these storms, the body of St Anselm approached us several times on a night which was very dark in
16:20a time of bad weather.
16:22The said saint appeared in the form of a lighted torch at the height of the main top and remained
16:28there more than two hours and a half to the comfort of us all.
16:33For we were in tears, expecting only the hour of death.
16:37And when the holy light was about to leave us, it was so bright at the eyes of all that
16:42we were for more than a quarter of an hour as blind men calling for mercy.
16:50This strange and dramatic phenomenon is called St Anselm's or St Elmo's fire.
16:58And I've seen this phenomena, bringing boats back across the Atlantic, I've seen this bright light at the mast.
17:04Really surprising, thought it might just be a little flash, but it hangs around for over a minute.
17:09What actually happens is in a big thunderstorm, the clouds become highly negatively charged.
17:15And in the end, the whole voltage tension adds up to about 30,000 volts per square centimetre.
17:22And then it all discharges in a spectacular fashion from the ends of masts and ends of pointed bits on
17:29a boat.
17:30Now, when these men saw this, they noticed that it always came near the end of a storm.
17:35And it does. It always occurs towards the end of a storm.
17:38So, naturally, they would think, this is a great sign. This is divine intervention.
17:52Divine intervention or not, these men were at the end of their physical limits.
17:58And as any modern-day explorer will tell you, it's not the exhausted body that gets you in the end.
18:03It's the mind.
18:05And this perceived visitation from a saint would have had a profound effect.
18:10And it would have pushed them on through their ordeal.
18:18Almost four months after leaving Spain, the battered fleet approached the coast of South America.
18:35They made landfall at a wild bay, near a place that would one day become Rio de Janeiro.
18:47From here, they followed the sweeping coast south.
18:50And along the way, Pigafetta recorded many strange and wonderful things.
18:57There are an infinite number of parrots.
19:05Also, some little cat monkeys, having almost the appearance of a lion.
19:13Also flying fish, so many of them that it seemed it was an island in the sea.
19:21And men and women who paint themselves with fire all over their bodies and faces, and eat the flesh of
19:29their enemies.
19:33Eventually, they reached the very edge of the known world, 35 degrees south.
19:39As far down the coast of South America as any westerner had ever been.
19:46Evidence suggests this was where Magellan expected to find the passage.
19:51The coastline turned sharp west, and there seemed to be no land to the south.
19:59Which place was formerly named Cape St Mary, and it was thought from thence there was a passage to the
20:07Sea of Sur, the South Sea.
20:15After 15 days of exploration, the dreadful truth dawned.
20:20This was not the fabled passage, but a gigantic inlet that stretched around 300 kilometres inland, and was almost 200
20:28wide.
20:29It was the mouth of the river plate.
20:37It was a disaster.
20:40Magellan had sailed into a dead end.
20:43Now his certainty about the passage was shot to pieces.
20:50But turning back was unthinkable.
20:56He made an extraordinary decision to step over the edge of the known world.
21:02To sail on where no other European had gone before.
21:07Blindly, he headed south along a desolate coast that he named Patagonia.
21:12Into some of the wildest seas in the world, and into winter.
21:22On the now Victoria, I asked Enrique Barrigan what it must have been like for Magellan's men.
21:28Enrique, how are you?
21:30Well, what were conditions like here on deck?
21:33Well, now we have 20 people, but at that time there were 40 or 45.
21:38Right.
21:38So there were plenty of people, and as you may know, we have beds for all of us.
21:44But they didn't have them, so they just had to find a place on the deck to sleep.
21:51Right out here on deck. 45 of them.
21:53Shit.
21:55And when we've been rolling, we've had a fair bit of water across the deck here.
21:58So imagine, when there were storms and bad weather, you know, the water comes in the whole time on the
22:06deck, always wet.
22:07So imagine how it was really, really hard for them.
22:12Wow.
22:16And it was about to get even harder.
22:21There are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible routes through.
22:27I mean, many of them would be small inlets, some great rivers, some huge blind bays, and they would all
22:33have to be checked out.
22:35And I can't imagine how hard it would be in poor weather to get part way up there and turn
22:40these boats, which aren't very manoeuvrable, turn them around and head them out to sea.
22:47They continued south for three months with no sign of a way through.
22:57Supplies were running low and the days were growing shorter.
23:02On March 31st, 1520, just a few days sailing from Antarctica, they sought shelter in a bay they called St.
23:11Julian.
23:12The men were cold, hungry and exhausted, and morale had hit rock bottom.
23:21When Magellan reduced rations, it was the final blow.
23:28His captains presented him with a petition demanding to return to Spain.
23:34This was not an option for a man who had gambled everything on finding the passage through South America.
23:51The expedition was now in the gravest jeopardy.
23:56Magellan had lost the hearts and minds of some of his captains, and therefore his men.
24:02The cold, the hunger, the lack of faith in their cagey captain-general, all added up to just one thing.
24:11Mutiny.
24:22One of the ringleaders was Gaspar Casada, captain of the Concepcion, who promised the men they would return to Spain
24:29once Magellan was out of the way.
24:35Magellan was isolated.
24:40He had to act quickly.
24:47He dispatched his loyal master at arms to one of the mutinous captains.
24:51Captain Mendoza, I have a message for you, Captain General.
24:56With a special message.
24:58It's a small message.
25:02Very special.
25:23The captain dispatched, the leaderless crew quickly caved in.
25:28Magellan took control of the ship, and then blocked the other ships from escaping.
25:32And from this position, he was able to quell the mutiny.
25:45But he had to reassert his authority quickly and convincingly.
25:54He made a brutal example of the treacherous Captain Casada.
25:58The Germans, come!
26:00Come!
26:01Come!
26:02Come!
26:02Come!
26:06Come!
26:10Come!
26:13Come!
26:13Come!
26:20There could be no doubt the Captain General was back in charge.
26:30With the mutineers put in their place, it was time to try and settle in for the winter.
26:34An incredibly dismal experience.
26:38Food would have been extremely scarce.
26:44I know what it's like to be short on food on an expedition.
26:47It's happened to me a few times.
26:48One occasion of note, having been high on a mountain in Alaska.
26:53The food being so short after many days, we spent four days in an ice cave living on soup made
26:58out of toothpaste.
27:04Conditions became even worse.
27:06One of the fleet, the Santiago, was smashed to pieces on the rocks.
27:11But nothing seemed to sway Magellan from his obsession.
27:24After seven months waiting out the winter, it was finally time to move on and look for the elusive passage.
27:33The four surviving ships pushed further south along the uncharted Patagonian coastline.
27:40Trying every possible inlet without success.
27:46Finally, Magellan's men spotted a clue.
27:48Whale bones.
27:50This was a great sign as it indicated the possible migration route through to the open sea that everybody hoped
27:56lay ahead.
28:00On the 21st of October, 1520, we found by a miracle a strait which we called the Cape of the
28:0911,000 Virgins.
28:15After nearly a year, they found an inlet and it reached deep into the interior.
28:20And something even more exciting.
28:26The water tasted salty, so it must mean that somehow the inlet must connect with another salt sea.
28:35Hoping that this might, at last, be the way through to the east, the whole fleet set off.
28:44At the western end was a long, narrow passage leading to a bay.
28:48And another passage beyond that.
28:53They headed on into the straits.
28:56What they found was an extraordinary maze of islands and potential dead ends.
29:11This strait was a circular place, surrounded by mountains.
29:16And to most of those in the ships, it seemed that there was no way out of it.
29:38As the endless search continued, Magellan's men became convinced that this was yet another hopeless quest.
29:56It was in these straits that Magellan lost his second ship.
30:01But this time, it wasn't due to weather.
30:04The San Antonio headed back to Spain in an act of rebellion.
30:11It was a devastating blow.
30:13The San Antonio was carrying most of the provisions that Magellan was relying on for the journey ahead.
30:21He ordered the remaining three ships to proceed northwest by west.
30:28It was a terrifying journey through a strait we now know to be 530 kilometres long.
30:43It took 38 frustrating days of searching before Magellan finally got the news he'd been waiting for.
30:57Captain!
30:59Captain!
31:02Captain!
31:04Captain!
31:05Captain!
31:05Let's take a giant giant to the window, Captain!
31:08Gigant!
31:11Go away.
31:43Ahead was the open sea.
31:50He had found the fabled passage.
31:54The Captain General wept for joy and called it Cape Desiado, for we had been desiring it for a very
32:03long time.
32:12In that proud moment, Magellan must have realized, without doubt, he now stood shoulder to shoulder with his great boyhood
32:21heroes, Columbus and Vasco da Gama.
32:25His dreams had come true.
32:38Even in this moment of personal triumph, Magellan could hardly have guessed at the historic significance of finding the passage.
32:47For 400 years, his route, the Magellan Strait, would be the major shipping route through to the Pacific.
32:54It was only bettered when the Panama Canal was blasted out of the land in 1914.
33:04It was an astonishing discovery, but Magellan and his men hoped it was the prelude to something even greater.
33:12The western route to the riches of the Spice Islands.
33:20On November 28th, 1520, Magellan led the fleet north.
33:28The weather was good, and the sea so calm, he named it the Pacific, the peaceful sea.
33:37The sky was huge, and the horizon stretched endlessly.
33:42The sky was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
33:46the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
33:56the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:00the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:01the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:02the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:02the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:02the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:02the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and the sea was huge, and
34:07the sea was huge,
34:20Even the sky at night was different.
34:23These God-fearing sailors wondered at the Southern Cross
34:26and noticed something strange in the heavens.
34:31There are several small stars clustered together in the manner of two clouds,
34:37and in the middle of them are two stars, not very bright, and they move slightly.
34:46Nearly 400 years later, these stellar clusters were identified
34:50as two of the closest galaxies to the Earth.
34:55The Magellanic Clouds have helped astronomers work out the scale of the Universe
34:59and witness the death of stars.
35:10On December the 18th, 1520, the fleet turned north-west into the heart of the Pacific.
35:19Unknowingly, Magellan had just made a serious error.
35:24He thought it was within three days' sailing of the Spice Islands.
35:29But that belief was based on maps of the then-known world.
35:34And these were based on the work of the second-century scholar Ptolemy,
35:38who estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 29,000 kilometres.
35:46The Captain-General was about to discover the hard way
35:50that Ptolemy was out by over 11,000 kilometres.
35:56This missing area, 28% of the world's circumference, is the Pacific.
36:05Magellan was leading his men into a vast, empty ocean.
36:15On the modern, now-Victoria, our captain, Jose, has some idea
36:20of what that journey must have been like.
36:22You've crossed the Pacific many times.
36:24You've crossed the Pacific on here.
36:27You, of anybody, would understand what Magellan's men would have gone through
36:33to have entered the biggest ocean in the world
36:35and not known how big it was and just day after day after day of uncertainty.
36:42I can imagine how much they suffered and what went through their minds,
36:47not knowing when they were going to reach any land,
36:50if they were going to reach any land.
36:53So it must have been very, very tough on them.
36:57And probably the weaker men must have felt that, you know,
37:01the head was going off and the lack of food,
37:04the food diminishing, the scurvy setting in,
37:08the water lousy, foul, because the wood contaminates the water.
37:12It must have been very, very hard on them.
37:16But obviously, the command of Magellan is a strong man
37:20and very tough with the crews.
37:22They probably kept the whole thing going on.
37:25Uno, dos, tres!
37:34The weeks passed, the emaciated crews began to starve again.
37:39Their accounts make disturbing reading.
37:45We ate the ox hides which were under the main yard,
37:49so that the yard should not break the rigging.
37:54And we ate old biscuits turned to powder,
37:58all full of worms and stinking of urine which the rats had made on it.
38:03And of the rats, which were sold for half an ecu apiece,
38:08some of us could not get enough.
38:14I believe that never more will any man undertake to make such a voyage.
38:25By late January 1521, Magellan had led the fleet northwest
38:30across thousands of kilometres of open ocean without relief.
38:36We saw no land except two small uninhabited islands
38:41where we found only birds and trees,
38:44and there is no place for anchoring,
38:47because no bottom can be found.
38:52Months later, with no land in sight,
38:56even Magellan must have had doubts.
39:18But almost five months, and 20,000 kilometres after they exited the straits,
39:24they finally made landfall at about 10 degrees north of the equator,
39:28in a place we now call the Philippines.
39:32In an astonishing feat of navigation,
39:35Magellan had led the fleet to safety.
39:37The Spice Islands were now no more than a few days' sail to the south.
39:42It seemed that his great gamble would pay off.
39:49The islands of the Philippines must have looked like paradise.
39:55There was fresh water, lush rainforests filled with fruit,
39:59and the local people seemed to welcome them.
40:07Magellan set about securing the route to the Spice Islands
40:10by claiming the Philippines for Spain.
40:13His most effective tool was Christianity.
40:16He knew that to convince these people to adopt this religion,
40:21and he had to persuade them that it is worth their while to do so.
40:25One of the arguments he used was of the invincibility which would derive from it,
40:30and this invincibility was demonstrated by the strength of his armament.
40:34The blast of the cannons terrified the natives
40:38and gave a measure of his power.
40:41When attempting and succeeding in baptizing and christianizing the local inhabitants,
40:48Magellan is at the same time ensuring that through this religious conversion
40:54they implicitly accept their status as subordinate to the Spanish crown,
40:59seen here as the ultimate symbol of worldly authority and religious virtue.
41:07A really tight, structured framework as which to live by.
41:10Live by these rules.
41:12Obey to these people, submit yourself to these people, and you will be invincible.
41:18So would it have been perhaps colonization?
41:21The very beginnings, the foundations of colonization.
41:24It would have taken many decades for the following Spanish fleets
41:28to effectively transform the Philippines into a Spanish colony.
41:34But that was the foundation upon which they built.
41:39Confident of his faith and his invincible weaponry,
41:43the captain general made a fateful decision.
41:46To show his support for a local chief,
41:49he decided to attack the rival chief of Mactan Island, Lapu-Lapu,
41:54who had refused to be baptized into the Christian faith.
42:05Aboard the Victoria, on the evening before the attack,
42:08his men were relaxed and confident.
42:25But on Mactan Island, Lapu-Lapu was taking Magellan's threats seriously.
42:32He summoned his most ferocious warriors and invoked the gods of war.
42:56The events that followed are replayed every year
42:59in the place where Magellan and Lapu-Lapu confronted each other.
43:10It was a clash of cultures and religion.
43:13For Filipinos, it's come to symbolize the struggle for independence.
43:28Before the battle, Magellan sent emissaries across these peaceful waters
43:32to try to get Lapu-Lapu to submit to Christianity and to Spanish rule.
43:38Once more, he refused.
43:42And so at dawn, on the 27th of April, 1521,
43:47Magellan and 50 of his men arrived on the beach at Mactan
43:50to do battle against Lapu-Lapu and a thousand of his men.
43:56Although he was heavily outnumbered, Magellan felt certain of victory
43:59because of his superior Spanish weapons and his armour.
44:04In fact, he was so confident of victory
44:07that he'd given a direct order to his other captains
44:09to not get involved in the fighting.
44:13But he'd made a fatal mistake.
44:15He'd arrived at low tide,
44:16which meant his ships were right out there in the deep water.
44:20And Magellan and his men had had an exhausting half-mile wade
44:24through the shallows.
44:29And his cannon were out of range.
44:41As the battle ensued,
44:44Magellan's men soon started running out of ammunition.
44:47And Lapu-Lapu's men surged forward.
44:52They spotted Magellan.
44:54One of them, with a large javelin,
44:56thrust it into his left leg, whereby he fell downward.
45:00On this, they all at once rushed on him with lances of iron and of bamboo.
45:06Magellan fought a brave fight. He hung on for a long time.
45:11Eventually, completely outnumbered, he was just slaughtered.
45:21They slew our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our great guide.
45:30Magellan never circumnavigated the globe.
45:33He didn't even reach the Spice Islands.
45:35His dreams ended here, in the Philippines.
45:43This was a complete tragedy, which terminates everything.
45:49His entire dream, his planning, his voyage, all the dramas of the navigation through the various oceans.
45:57End here, and end here totally.
46:00So what do you think? If Magellan had won this battle, how would the expedition have turned out in the
46:05end?
46:07Had he not died, and had he found the Spice Islands, which were very near, my guess is that he
46:14would have come back the same way he went, through the Pacific, which had never been done before.
46:20And it is most likely, knowing the ocean, that he might have lost the entire fleet and himself.
46:26And with that, nothing would have remained of this epic voyage.
46:42Magellan's dreams may have died in the Philippines, but his legacy lives on.
46:47In this dusty little shrine, you can still see the cross he raised, so hopefully when he first arrived on
46:53these islands.
46:55It's one of the holiest relics in one of the most Catholic countries in the world.
47:01It might have been the only relic of Magellan's voyage, if another man hadn't seized the chance of fame and
47:07fortune.
47:13Magellan's death could have spelled the end for the expedition, but the remaining men knew the Spice Islands were so
47:19close, they could almost smell the spices.
47:24Reduced to two ships, the survivors set off to find the islands.
47:28Taking command of the Victoria was a popular new leader, Juan Sebastian Elcano.
47:45History was to deny him his rightful role in this epic story.
47:51Elcano brought good fortune, for at last they sighted the Spice Islands.
47:59The 28,000-kilometre journey had cost the lives of over 100 men, including the Captain General.
48:08But the surviving crew finally reached the Spice Islands and realised Magellan's dream.
48:14The hero is a Robert Scниphers with the
48:14''It is the first thing that CRA You.
48:28Should've survived."
48:30Has been a last dream for theCra semana.
48:31testimonies.
48:32The one whoも 완성ed and their cure to their culture,
48:33Ele rusha from Arsenal for a long time for a long time.
48:49this is what it's all about spices these are cloves right they're cloves they're the flowers
48:54of the clove plant they don't look very familiar though but they're the we more see them as like
49:00this dried ones yeah yes it's not just like my mom's apple pie yes they're aromatic but you know
49:06I can't help but think this Augusto is that holding these in my hand seems hard to believe
49:11that the men went to such risk and pain and suffering for something that seems to be honest
49:17completely ordinary and how much would would there have been worth I mean pound for pound or
49:23pound for pound that would be come at a high price imagine that clove tree could produce only seven
49:28pounds per tree and that here still have to dry them and therefore the dried ones would be very
49:35expensive and in relation to gold how about yes so they'll be more weight more than gold itself
49:42so pound for pound yes worth more than gold and a bag like that excuse me that has set a
49:49man up for
49:49life right yes well put like that I guess it don't seem quite so ordinary
50:01Elcano and his men understood the value of the ton of spices loaded onto each ship and they knew
50:08that to make their fortunes they had to get them back to Spain the remaining two ships had to make
50:14a
50:14choice between returning the way they'd come or continuing west taking their chances in enemy waters
50:26one chose to go east and the other west
50:33the Trinidad headed eastwards across the Pacific
50:39but it didn't get far before it fell into Portuguese hands the precious cargo was seized the ship burned and
50:47the crew thrown into jail
50:57Elcano sailed west on the Victoria Spain was about 20,000 kilometers away and the entire route lay in the
51:07Portuguese sphere of influence
51:13to avoid capture he navigated vast tracks of uncharted waters
51:26two months and almost 5,000 kilometers later they encountered terrible storms
51:39the storms and when went through
51:43was so powerful but actually broke this mass unlike everything that broke on the ship
51:51had to be repaired with what they had at sea
51:55and not only that Elcano and his men began to run dangerously low on rations again
52:03I can't imagine what it would be like to work a ship like this which needs a lot of manual
52:09labor and be that low on energy
52:20the starving men began to develop scurvy
52:26above all our other misfortunes the worst was that the gums of the upper and lower teeth of our men
52:34swelled so much that they could not eat
52:3825 or 30 men fell sick
52:41of whom 19 died
52:49scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C
52:52and here was the terrible irony
52:53the crew was sitting on a cargo of clothes
52:56and what they didn't know
52:58was that it contained vitamin C
53:00and this would have saved them
53:04as a ship headed back to Spain
53:06more than half of them
53:08would die of scurvy
53:09or starvation
53:18Elcano escaped the scurvy
53:20because he ate spoonfuls of quench jelly
53:23unknown to him
53:24this contained enough vitamin C
53:26to protect him from the disease
53:34it's probably what enabled pig of feta to keep writing his diary
53:42and without this we would never have known of Elcano's great feat of navigation
53:48he led the Victoria across vast oceans
53:51past the Cape of Good Hope
53:53and the Cape Verde Islands
53:55back to Spain
53:58of the 241 men who began the journey
54:01only a handful returned with them
54:06they lived to tell the remarkable tale
54:08of the Spanish sailor who finished the journey
54:11Magellan had started three years before
54:14came by the paginagres
54:14of?! who's
54:14of us? what the
54:15Big Z Yeah
54:17somewhere yellow
54:24Well
54:25ma
54:31how fun in Cid
54:39Bom Med
54:40And we were only 18 men, for the most part, sick of the 60 who had left Molucca.
54:51The Victoria became the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
54:55It had turned what until then was just pure theory, that the Earth was round, into an indisputable fact.
55:05Elcano was honoured with a special coat of arms, declaring him to be the first man to sail round the
55:11world.
55:18Five centuries later, sailing round the globe is still a remarkable achievement.
55:34As the modern Victoria returns to Seville at the end of its 40,000-kilometre journey,
55:40its crew are greeted as heroes after more than 500 days at sea, on a journey they will never forget.
55:50I still can't believe that we circumnavigate the whole world.
55:55I cannot imagine right now, but I'm sure it has changed completely my life.
56:08It has been a realisation of my dreams, to the utmost.
56:29It has been a realisation of my dreams, to the utmost.
56:31It may have made history, but it didn't fulfil the hopes of the crew.
56:35They never made their fortunes.
56:39The cargo of spices were sold, and the proceeds seized by the King of Spain,
56:44to cover the loss of the rest of the fleet.
56:49The chronicler Pigafetta was snubbed by the Spanish court, and returned to his native Italy.
56:56His diaries remain the definitive record of the great voyage.
57:03Elcano attempted a second circumnavigation, to claim the Spice Islands for Spain four years later.
57:10But he didn't make it. Crossing the Pacific, he died of scurvy.
57:25As for Ferdinand Magellan himself, although he never completed the voyage,
57:29the popular perception is that he was the first person to circumnavigate the world.
57:36Unless that is you go to Spain, and I'll tell you the first person who sailed around the world was
57:40Juan Sebastian Elcano.
57:43But does it really matter? After all, they're both great men.
57:47Magellan had what it took to dream up such a daring voyage, and make it happen,
57:52and Elcano had the strength and tenacity to finish it.
57:58They and the men who sailed with them shared one of the greatest voyages of discovery.
58:03The voyage that would define the shape and size of our Earth and its oceans,
58:07and change the geographical, spiritual and political landscape forever.
58:28Bringing a myth to life next on BBC Four,
58:32Bettany Hughes digs up the evidence for the fabled land of Atlantis.
58:37To be continued...
58:48To be continued...
58:53To be continued...