In September 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan set off on a fateful voyage to find a route to the Spice Islands. In the centuries since, Magellan has gone down in history as a chivalric adventurer, his name forever linked to the first circumnavigation of the globe. But, as Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto tells Ellie Cawthorne, Magellan’s career was in fact shaped more by failure than success.
Felipe Fernández-Armesto is the author of Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan (Bloomsbury, 2022)
