The Mutiny Crushed

The crew was a mess from the start. Spanish captains resented taking orders from a Portuguese commander. Within months, three of five captains launched a mutiny. Magellan crushed it brutally — executing one captain and marooning another on a frozen South American shore.

The captain who finished the voyage — Juan Sebastián Elcano — is largely forgotten. Magellan gets the credit for the first circumnavigation even though he made it only two-thirds of the way. The strait at the southern tip of South America still bears his name, a monument to the journey that killed him.