Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521), born in Portugal and killed in Cebu, Philippines, was a Portuguese seafarer and navigator who worked most of his life for Castille, the Spanish throne. In 1520-1521, Magellan commanded an expedition of five ships whose mission was to find a passage around the American continent to the Spice Islands (Moluku, Indonesia).
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The rise of the Dutch maritime commercial activities in the Pacific and Asia in the early 17th century is based on a series of events between the independent Netherlands merchant towns and King Philip II of Spain. The resistance of the Netherlands proved the undoing of Spanish dreams of a world empire.
Andrés de Urdaneta (1498-1568), a Spanish Augustinian friar born in Villafranca de Ordizia in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain, was a seaman, sailor, navigator and author who became the most knowledgeable European navigator of the Pacific, best known for his discovery of the Tornaviaje, or return sea route from the Philippines to the Americas.
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