Back in December 1577, Sir Francis Drake set off on a trip around the world.
He was a privateer of Queen Elizabeth . That's a fancy name for a royally sanctioned pirate.
At that time he was already known for having raided Caribbean ports, and commandeering Spanish gold ships/ The Spaniards hated and feared him and some of them thought he was a dark wizard.
Elizabeth commissioned him to sail the Atlantic Ocean in search of Terra Australis Incognita. According to Wikipedia Terra Australis (Latin for South Land) was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. The existence of Terra Australis was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental land in the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the Southern Hemisphere. This theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps.
Drake left Plymouth with a fleet of five ships, but only one -his ship, the Golden Hind - ever completed the circumnavigation. It was quite the journey taking him from England to the Atlantic coast of North and South America, through the Strait of Magellan, and up the Pacific coast. He raided and pillaged for five and a half months but had a reputation as a "gentleman pirate." He kept violence to a minimum and no one was intentionally harmed in his raids.
I didn't realize that he went as far as northern California, which he named “Nova Albion” and claimed for Elizabeth.
Next, he sailed through the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and home to Plymouth with a ship heavily laden with gold, silver, and spices.
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| Drake's journey |
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