On September 26, 1580, English seaman Francis Drake returned to England as the first British navigator to sail around the world. It took him almost three years to do it.
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Drake set out with a crew of five ships on December 13, 1577. The initial goal was to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific Coast of what was known as the New World — basically, the Americas. It was a devastating trip, with two ships being abandoned in South America, one wrecking in a storm, and another giving up the ghost and returning to England. Drake took the last remaining ship, the Golden Hind, out to the Pacific Ocean, where he proceeded to raid Spanish settlements to steal their treasures.
At the time, finding a northeast passage from North America to the Atlantic was something of a big deal. Drake didn’t manage it; he reached as far as modern-day Washington state before he turned around and returned the way he came.
He returned on September 26 laden with treasure, but perhaps nothing was as valuable as the information he learned about the world’s oceans, which he could then share with other future seamen. That was seriously crucial for future journeys out into the great unknown and aided in the overall colonization of the New World.
DISCUSSION
Magellan and Elcano did the same trip in 1522, 68 years earlier, in what was the first ever circumnavigation of Earth (Magellan did not make it to the end). Elcano eventually died in 1526 during what would become the second planetary circumnavigation. Drake completed the third one. Interestingly, the so-called Drake Passage had already been discovered by Francisco de Hoces in 1525. Drake only managed to find it because after entering the Pacific through the Magellan Strait, his flagship, the Golden Hind, was blown far south by a tempest (which caused the loss of the Marigold and the return to England of the Elizabeth, leaving Drake with just his own ship). Somehow, the English were not aware of open waters south of South America until this point, even though it had been know to the Spanish for decades. Many Spanish maps still show the Drake Passage referred to as “Mar de Hoces”. Undoubtedly, the defeat of the Spanish Armada (in which Drake had a preponderant role), contributed to him getting credited with discoveries that were just rediscoveries.