Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

by Laurence Bergreen

And that is one definition of discovery: finding something you didn’t know existed. I remember attending a NASA press conference concerning Mars, and the journalists present were peppering the scientists with questions about what they planned to discover. Finally one of the scientists declared that if the people at NASA knew in advance what they were going to discover, it wouldn’t be a discovery, would it?

Ptolemy’s omissions inadvertently encouraged exploration because he made the world seem smaller and more navigable than it really was. If he had correctly estimated the size of the world, the Age of Discovery might never have occurred.

An Indonesian ruler was said to have boasted to a trader who wanted to grow spices in Europe, “You may be able to take our plants, but you will never be able to take our rain.”

but after the Indian left Trinidad, he never returned. The fleeting encounter with the indifferent tribal leader baffled Magellan and his officers. If they were received well, the sailors were ready for orgies, and the priests for conversions; if they were attacked, they were ready for battle. But they were not prepared to be ignored.

To be a Basque meant, and still means, to be a historical anomaly. The Basques are the oldest ethnic group of Europe, a breed apart ever since Paleolithic times. In their province in northern Spain, next to the French border, the Basques speak a distinct language, actually, eight dialects of a distinct language. No direct link between the Basque tongue and another language has been identified. Over the centuries, various monarchs had attempted to annex the Basques, and although King Ferdinand finally conquered them in 1512, and Basques became fervent Catholics, the fiercely independent Basque culture persisted.