The first circumnavigation of the world was unwittingly initiated by Ferdinand Magellan. He however died before the historical feat was achieved 500 years ago, on September 6, 1522. A battle-hardened knight and hardy sailor at a young age, Magellan never would have imagined he would be the one to make the key contribution to travelling around the globe. Born about 1480 in Portugal into a Catholic family of minor nobility, Magellan was influenced by the confining religious ideology of the late Middle Ages and the idea of subjecting the world to Christianity. The era was marked by the epochal shift from the Middle Ages to modern times. In 1492, Christopher Columbus had sailed to America, which inspired other seafarers to go on ever more daring voyages of discovery seeking new lands and fabulous wealth.