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When last we left Drake and company, it was August 1578, and the fleet had spent a good part of the southern winter in the protected harbor at Port Saint Julian, in today’s Argentina, about a hundred miles north of the entrance to the Strait of Magellan. That was where Drake was headed, because that was the only way that any European knew of to get into the Pacific Ocean by heading west.
In the next seven months, Drake and his crew would make the fastest crossing of the Strait during the fifteenth century, discover Drake’s Passage and thereby overturn the received wisdom of Europe’s geographers (who believed South America was connected to a southern continent at the South Pole), and by some measures have the most spectacular run of any English pirate or privateer in history. We also learn the origin of the name “penguin,” which makes great dinner party conversation.
#VastEarlyAmerica
Website: The History of the Americans
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References for this episode
Samuel Bawlf, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580
John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake
