Mark does well to clarify. Magellan was surely a great sailor, but his "second" managed to complete the voyage, from the Philippines to Spain, with a reduced crew, in more than difficult conditions.
Juan Sebastiàn Elcano (Elkano) was a great navigator too, and a "brother of blood" for me (born in Getaria, Gipuzkoa, near Donostia/San Sebastiàn). I know well the port and the landskapes of his youth.
I don't know if it's possible for you to see the film in English version, but the most fabulous (and comical) movie about the Great Spain of the 17th century is "La Folie des Grandeurs" (Delusions of Grandeur, 1971), with Louis de Funès (Don Salluste, Grande de España and Minister of the Treasury) and Yves Montand (César, son valet audacieux, his daring servant)...
The full film is accessible, in French, on Dailymotion (and perhaps on YouTube too). I think that even without understanding everything, you will have a great time !
Don't forget that they were also (greatly) helped by diseases, expecially smallpox, which the natives weren't accustomed, entire tribes/nations were devastated/wiped out by these terrrible viruses, without them probabilly the europeans wuold've had a more hard time with the natives, f.e. in Africa was the (almost) exact contrary, europeans' expansion was limited by the local diseases.
P.s. when Magellan's expedition survivors arrived in Spain, I read that the single cargo in spices was worth of billions for that times, it alone was capable to repay various times expedition's cost.
The replica of this boat, "La Victoria", exists. I saw "her" once, to my great surprise, moored in a small port of the Basque Country. "She" was inaugurated at the Universal Exhibition of Sevilla (1992).
She's a large nutshell, human-sized... When you see the size of our modern long-distance boats, it's incredible to think that people have been able to circumnavigate the world with this type of vessel !
Arizona Military Museum, Phoenix, AZ:
@Pierre Lerdou-Udoy
it's incredible to think that people have been able to circumnavigate the world with this type of vessel !
What I cannot fathom is that a good portion of the 18 survivors joined the Loaísa-Expedition some years later and did it again. The "German gunner" that shows up as a background character in the series is one Hans von Aachen, and one of the few survivors of the Loaisa-Expedision, and thus the first man on earth who circumnavigated twice. He got lost during his third attempt with the Villabos expection 42.
Comrade Axel, you do well to recall that "Iberians" and "Germans" went hand in hand toward these unknown horizons... with the Habsburg for lords and masters.
