January 2005 - Tampa Bay Mensa

January 2005 33
Who was the first person to circumnavigate the world Most
of us do not know the answer to this from our grade school
experience because those history books do such a poor job of
telling us. Perhaps your book will use a higher wattage beam
to illuminate this issue, which is important in history in that it
provided full demonstration of the shape of the world and the
relative positions of its landmasses.
34 Tampa Bay Sounding
was the first to circumnavigate. Since then many sources
have repeated this conclusion in mantra-like fashion. Online,
the Catholic Encyclopedia unhesitatingly states that Ferdinand
Magellan was, "the first circumnavigator of the real world."
Other Google encyclopedia hits indicate similar
oversimplification. As a result of this quirk in deciding
history, the Magellan name has achieved great stature, as
evidenced by its use as a name for: a company that makes
navigational equipment, a satellite mission to Venus, a travel
supply company, a health services company, an aerospace
company, one of Fidelity's mutual funds, and many more, I
am sure. Will your textbook say that Magellan’s expedition
was the first to circumnavigate the world Or, perhaps, that
the Portuguese were the first to do so, by virtue of whose
vessels and funding made it possible
***
We do know that Ferdinand Magellan headed the expedition
that first completed such a trip, but also that he himself died
about half way around. We also know that commander Juan
Sebastian del Cano and 17 crewmen of the original 240
members of the expedition completed the voyage.
Subsequently, most European contemporaries credited del
Cano with the circumnavigation; the Portuguese called
Magellan a traitor; the Spanish condemned him for his
navigational errors; and someone should fault him for getting
involved with the Philippine tribal conflicts that lead to his
premature death when his mission was to find a route to the
Spice Islands. Magellan was given credit for the feat by the
expedition's journalist (no doubt an ancestor of Dan Rather),
and this apparently is how historians began saying Magellan
Here is one final matter, about which I can only ask questions:
Why is Independence Day celebrated on July 4 A long time
ago I might have figured it was because the Declaration of
Independence was written on July 4, but no, it was written on
July 2. So, was it signed on July 4 No, the signing was not
complete until August 2nd. One excellent answer to why we
recognize July 4 might be that the date “July 4, 1776” is written
in huge characters at the top of the document! So a deeper
question would be: What was important, if anything, about
July 4 that made it the date chosen How was it significant to
those Founding Fathers that it became their choice Or was it
arbitrary Many historical events took place when they did
because some confluence of events made the timing inevitable,
such as D-Day being on June 6, or Kennedy’s assassination on
November 23, 1963, but I am not aware of such workings in
the case of Independence Day. In any event, it’s still a great
occasion to watch fireworks.
Good luck with your book!