Sir Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake was a famous English explorer and privateer. Drake’s greatest achievement was being the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. He discovered that Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America, was in fact an island.

He sailed through the Straits of Magellan to California. He then set sail for the East Indies. After reaching the Philippines, almost a year later, he had circumnavigated the globe. Upon his arrival in Plymouth in 1580, Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. Jodocus Hondius’ 1595 world map records Drake’s navy fleet in the Pacific. This sparked tension with the Spanish who had already claimed the area and contributed to the eruption of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Drake was killed in an attack on the port of Panamá in 1596.