Magellan and the First Circumnavigation

Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães), a Portuguese nobleman and veteran of Portuguese campaigns in Asia, fell out of favor with King Manuel I and offered his services instead to the young Spanish king Charles I (later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). In 1518 the two agreed a contract for Magellan to find a westward route to the Moluccas, the "Spice Islands" of eastern Indonesia, that would remain within Spain's Tordesillas hemisphere and bypass Portugal's Indian Ocean route entirely.