Quotes from Laurence Bergreen

Of the food that Magellan took on at Seville, nearly four-fifths consisted of just two items, wine and hardtack.

The Solis-Pinzón expedition, which embarked in 1508, discovered nothing, and when the expedition's two ships returned to Spain

On October 21, Albo, the pilot, recorded the great event in his log:

Wine was considered the most important; it was tax free, and an official was required to come aboard

and disappointed King Ferdinand clapped Solis in jail.

and on May 5 sailed northeast into the North Atlantic.

time he joined the ranks of explorers who became estranged from this vain ruler.

We saw an opening like a bay, and it has at the entrance, on the right hand, a very long spit of sand

Two years later, in 1512, Solis, deftly manipulating the levers of influence, rehabilitated himself, and King Ferdinand

cape which we discovered before this spit is called the Cape of the [Eleven Thousand] Virgins

Manuel's harshest policies concerned the Jews of Portugal

made him pilot major; he then received an ambitious new commission to claim the Spice Islands for Spain.

Fear was his most important means of motivating his men; they became more afraid of Magellan than the hazards of the sea.

spit of sand is in 52 degrees latitude, 521?2 longitude, and from the spit of sand to the other part

found many islands filled with people without number, and of them all have I taken possession for Their Highnesses, by proclamation and with the royal standard displayed, and nobody objected.

who distinguished themselves as scientists, artisans, merchants, scholars

King Manuel of Portugal protested, Ferdinand, shading the truth a bit, explained that Solis's task was simply to find the line

He appointed his cousin, Álvaro de Mesquita, as judge presiding over an exhaustive trial.

there may be a matter of five leagues," he observed. This is what he saw: a series of mounds, covered with tufts of grass

Dates are given in the Julian calendar, in effect since the time of Julius Caesar.

Disputes over the crew's composition and pay bedeviled Magellan until the moment of the fleet's departure from Seville.

Soon after, Ferdinand canceled the expedition, but he sent word to his representatives in the Caribbean

rising approximately 130 feet from the water. A later explorer described the cape as "three great mountains of sand that look like islands

when King Manuel wished to take the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella as his wife