This Day in History: Drake’s Earth circumnavigation

On 13 December 1577, English seaman Francis Drake sets out on a mission that three years later would turn him into the first British explorer to complete a circumnavigation of the Earth on his own ship The Golden Hind.
Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan had sailed three-fourths of the way around the globe earlier in the century but did no complete the journey as he was killed in the Philippines, leaving the task to Basque navigator Juan Sebastián de Elcano.
Drake had set sail from Plymouth, England, with five ships and 164 men on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World and explore the Pacific Ocean.
After crossing the Atlantic, Drake abandoned two of his ships in South America and sailed into the Straits of Magellan with the remaining three. A series of devastating storms besieged his expedition in the treacherous straits, wrecking one ship and forcing another to return to England. Only The Golden Hind reached the Pacific Ocean, but Drake continued undaunted up the western coast of South America, raiding Spanish settlements and capturing a rich Spanish treasure ship.
Drake then continued up the western coast of North America, searching for a possible northeast passage back to the Atlantic. Reaching as far north as present-day Washington before turning back, Drake paused near San Francisco Bay in June 1579 to repair his ship and prepare for a journey across the Pacific. Calling the land “Nova Albion,” Drake claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I.
In July, the expedition set off across the Pacific, visiting several islands before rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and returning to the Atlantic Ocean. On September 26, 1580, The Golden Hind returned to Plymouth, England, bearing treasure, spice, and valuable information about the world’s great oceans.
In 1581, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Drake and he later played a crucial role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.