Magellan set sail from Spain with a fleet of five ships, but he himself only made it halfway around the world. After crossing the strait at the southern tip of the Americas that now bears his name, he was killed in battle in the Philippines.

Image “Everybody knows Magellan — and I’m just tired of telling people who” Juan Sebastián Elcano was, one Spaniard said. Credit... Universal History Archive, via Getty Images

Only one of the ships completed the three-year circumnavigation, guided home by Elcano, a Spanish officer from the Basque Country.

“The focus has always been on Magellan, but everybody should know that this was the project of a Spanish king, financed with Spanish money and completed by a great Spanish navigator whose role has unfortunately been forgotten,” said Carmen Iglesias, the president of Spain’s Royal Academy of History. “This commemoration should absolutely serve to rebalance the relationship” between Magellan and Elcano, she added.

The commemoration events in both Spain and Portugal will mostly focus on the achievements of Magellan and Elcano. But the three-year journey also contained episodes of violent conflict between the navigators and local people. Lapu-Lapu, the ruler whose troops killed Magellan, is celebrated in the Philippines as a hero of resistance to European imperialism.

The expedition helped consolidate European colonial dominance, departing 25 years after Spain and Portugal had signed a treaty to divide control over the vast territories that they had already conquered.