Exactly 500 years ago, a small band of sailors completed the first ever circumnavigation of the globe, launched by Ferdinand Magellan.  From the armada of five ships and some 270 men that set out, only one ship and 18 men returned. Magellan was not among them, and if he had been, he would hardly have received a hero’s welcome.

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb marks the anniversary with Magellan’s award-winning biographer Laurence Bergreen. Together they consider Magellan the man and how his voyage changed the world’s ideas about cosmology and geography.

The Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie. It was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. 

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