Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer born in 1480 who led the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe. In 1519, he set sail from Spain with five ships and successfully navigated around the southern tip of South America, becoming the first European to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean. However, Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521, and it was not until 1522 that the expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano with only one ship returning.