505 years ago today
Ferdinand Magellan Killed in the Philippines
On April 27, 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed on the island of Mactan in the Philippines during a skirmish against warriors led by the local chieftain Lapulapu. Magellan had embroiled himself in an inter-island dispute, leading a force of around sixty men against a much larger indigenous force — and underestimating his opponents badly. Struck by bamboo spears and arrows, Magellan died in the battle, becoming one of history's great "almost-made-it" figures: he had completed the westward voyage from Europe to Asia, but would never complete the circumnavigation of the globe. His surviving crew, led by Juan Sebastián Elcano, continued and completed the first circumnavigation in 1522. Lapulapu is celebrated today as the first Filipino to repel European colonizers, and Magellan's death is a defining moment in the story of world exploration.
This day, across time
- 711 CEEventMoorish Troops Land at Gibraltar
- 1521FeaturedFerdinand Magellan Killed in the Philippines
- 1593BornMumtaz Mahal
- 1667EventJohn Milton Sells Paradise Lost for £10
- 1759BornMary Wollstonecraft
- 1791BornSamuel Morse
- 1805EventU.S. Marines Attack Tripoli
- 1822BornUlysses S. Grant
- 1861EventLincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
- 1882DiedRalph Waldo Emerson
- 1891BornSergei Prokofiev
- 1906EventRussian State Duma Meets for the First Time
- 1915DiedAlexander Scriabin
- 1936EventUnited Auto Workers Founded
- 1937DiedAntonio Gramsci
- 1994EventSouth Africa's First Post-Apartheid Election
Alive in 1521
OverlapSame years; not influence
Catherine de' Mediciturned 2 this year
Henry VIIIturned 30 this year
John Calvinturned 12 this year
Martin Lutherturned 38 this year
Michelangelo Buonarrotiturned 46 this year
Niccolò Machiavelliturned 52 this year
Nicolaus Copernicusturned 48 this year
On This Day in History
8 EventsMoorish Troops Land at Gibraltar
Tariq ibn Ziyad leads Moorish troops ashore at Gibraltar, beginning the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Within a few years, Muslim forces would control most of what is now Spain and Portugal, a dominion that would last nearly 800 years.
Magellan Killed at Battle of Mactan
Ferdinand Magellan is slain by warriors led by Lapulapu on the island of Mactan in the Philippines, ending the explorer's voyage before circumnavigation was complete.
John Milton Sells Paradise Lost for £10
Blind and impoverished, John Milton sells the rights to his masterpiece "Paradise Lost" to a printer for £10 so it could be entered into the Stationers' Register. One of the greatest epic poems in the English language was worth barely a week's wages.
U.S. Marines Attack Tripoli
United States Marines and Berber allies attack the Tripolitan city of Derna during the First Barbary War — the action immortalized in the line "to the shores of Tripoli" in the Marines' Hymn.
Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
President Abraham Lincoln unilaterally suspends the writ of habeas corpus along the military line between Washington D.C. and Philadelphia in response to Confederate activity, sparking a constitutional crisis with the Supreme Court.
Russian State Duma Meets for the First Time
The State Duma of the Russian Empire holds its inaugural session, a landmark constitutional concession wrested from Tsar Nicholas II following the failed Revolution of 1905.
United Auto Workers Founded
The United Auto Workers union is established, going on to organize workers at Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler and become one of the most powerful labor unions in American history.
South Africa's First Post-Apartheid Election
South Africa holds its first fully democratic elections open to all races, with Nelson Mandela and the ANC winning a decisive victory. The election marked the end of apartheid and the beginning of South Africa's democratic era.
Born on This Day
Ulysses S. Grant
American general and 18th President of the United States
Grant commanded Union forces to victory in the Civil War as general-in-chief of all U.S. armies, accepting Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865. His two-term presidency was marked by Reconstruction efforts and notorious corruption scandals.
Samuel Morse
American inventor and painter
Morse co-invented the telegraph and developed Morse code, a system of dots and dashes used to transmit messages over electrical wires. His 1844 transmission of "What hath God wrought?" from Washington to Baltimore inaugurated the age of instant communication.
Mary Wollstonecraft
English philosopher and women's rights advocate
Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792) was a foundational text of feminist philosophy, arguing that women's apparent inferiority was a product of lack of education rather than innate nature. She was the mother of Mary Shelley.
Sergei Prokofiev
Russian composer and pianist
Prokofiev was one of the major composers of the twentieth century, known for his ballets "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella," the symphonic fairy tale "Peter and the Wolf," and his seven symphonies. He navigated a difficult career under Soviet cultural pressure.
Mumtaz Mahal
Mughal empress, inspiration for the Taj Mahal
Mumtaz Mahal was the beloved wife of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. She died in childbirth in 1631, and the grieving emperor spent the next twenty-two years building the Taj Mahal in Agra as her mausoleum — one of the world's greatest architectural monuments.
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Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese explorer, led first circumnavigation attempt
Magellan was killed in a battle on Mactan Island in the Philippines before completing the first circumnavigation of the globe. His surviving crew completed the voyage under Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
American philosopher and poet
Emerson died in Concord, Massachusetts, having shaped the intellectual identity of a young nation through decades of essays, lectures, and poetry that preached self-reliance, nature, and the over-soul.
Antonio Gramsci
Italian Marxist philosopher and politician
Gramsci died in a Roman clinic after eleven years of imprisonment under Mussolini's Fascist regime. His "Prison Notebooks," written while incarcerated, became one of the most important works of twentieth-century political theory.
Alexander Scriabin
Russian composer and pianist
Scriabin was a visionary composer whose late works pushed tonality to the breaking point and anticipated twentieth-century modernism. He died of blood poisoning from an insect bite on his lip, aged 43.
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