Who was the first person to circumnavigate the globe?

Danny Jo

Danny Jo

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Was it?
<ul type="square"> [*]Christopher Columbus [*]Vasco da Gama [*]Mandy Rice Davies [*]Juan Sebastian Elcano [*]Ferdinand Magellan [*]Joshua Slocum [*]Antonio Nostradamus Other [/list]

(Easy for those that were watching BBC 4 on Thursday night.) And how does one create a questionnaire? I'd love to know how many think it's Mandy.
 
None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

He left the Garddfon in October 530 AD and via Brandon (next Dingle and below the Pater Noster) in a leather boat with plenty of tallow and 14 other monks for Newfoundland, Canton and the Spice Route to return to the Emerald Island in 537 AD. And it's all recorded in the prologue to the Book of Kells in TCD. It may not be a true 'circumnavigation' but is or may be the first recorded 'circumlocution.'
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

None of those if Gavin Menzies in his 1421 The year China Discovered the World is to believed, it makes very interesting reading, and shows that Columbus and De Gama had maps that existed before they set off.
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

A leather boat with 15 monks sounds a bit implausible (how much vitamin C does tallow contain?) but an earlier circumnavigation by the Chinese gets closer to the bounds of possibility.

Another example, perhaps, of how the credit for discoveries and pioneering achievements often goes to the best self-publicist, or according to national loyalties. Daniel Salmon, of Salmonella fame, managed to get most of the credit for discoveries made by Theobald Smith; in Spain Elcano is the first circumnavigator, while in Portugal it is Magellan; Gallo (American) and Montagnier (French) spent over a decade arguing about who was the first to discover HIV before publicly settling for a draw.
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

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leather boat with 15 monks sounds a bit implausible

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I think it was Thor hyderdal that built a replica of brendans leather boat and crossed the Atlantic in it.Not sure if he took 15 monks though /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

T'was actually a guy called Tim Severin, and afterwards he wrote a book called "The Brendan Voyage".

Interesting book, telling the story from his initial idea to re-create St. Brendans supposed travels, through building the boat and the problems encountered on the way, and the voyage itself.

Well worth reading!
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

thanks for that.I thought I was wrong and just googled it to find it was as you say Tim Severin.
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastr

He sold the boat a a car-boot upon his return.

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History books would have it that it was Ferdinand Magellan.
Francis Drake was the 1st Englishman.
But who is to say that some Neanderthal in a trimaran dugout did it 1st. Remember History is bunk. Must go and look up who said that, was it Henry or Thomas thingy. Ho hum who cares.
 
From what I recall, possibly inaccurately, Magellan personally didn't make it. All that was left of his fleet was one battered ship which returned with a depleted half-dead scurvy crew; those that survived did penance for keeping saints' days on the wrong day, having somehow slipped a day ...
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

Will add my voice: Tim Severin's book is well worth a read.
It's very hard now to say exactly where Brendan actually got to, since the accounts are more interesting than informative, but when the Vikings reached Iceland, I understand they found Irish monks already there ..
 
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From what I recall, possibly inaccurately, Magellan personally didn't make it. All that was left of his fleet was one battered ship which returned with a depleted half-dead scurvy crew

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You're right. Magellan never made it, having come out on the wrong side of a spat with a Phillipine chief who refused to accept both Spanish sovereignty and Christianity. He deserves much of the credit, though, for his strength of character in keeping the expedition going in spite of mutiny, in the belief that firstly there was sea route around the South of the Americas and secondly, on the basis of inaccurate estimates of the circumference of the earth, that the Pacific was several thousand miles narrower than it actually was.

De Elcano completed the voyage for him. Of 239 men in five ships, only 17 or 18 men in one ship, the Victoria, returned home to Seville. De Elcano reputedly survived scurvy on the circumnavigation because of his fondness for quince jelly. He died on a subsequent journey across the Pacific, of scurvy.
 
Re: None of those! It was St Brendon the Voyager (Ex Garddfon Monastry)

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Will add my voice: Tim Severin's book is well worth a read. (cut)

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All of Tim Severin's voyages are well worth reading! They include Chinese junk across the Pacific, Trireme in the Med, Jason's trip in the Argosy replica, and many other replica traditional craft. They are also available as Videos and are sometimes shown on the Discovery/ Adventure channels
 
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