31. The First Pirate to Circumnavigate the Globe
In 1577, Francis Drake led an expedition of 5 ships to raid the Pacific coast of Spanish South America, which was wholly undefended in those days. Braving storms, he passed through the Straits of Magellan in his flagship, the Golden Hind, then sailed up the coasts of Chile and Peru. Near Lima, he captured a Spanish ship which yielded 25,000 gold coins, and soon thereafter captured a fabulously rich prize, the Cacafuego, a Manilla galleon which yielded a treasure of 80 pounds of gold, 13 chests of coins, and 26 tons of silver.
With his holds full of loot, Drake crossed the Pacific, sailed the Indian Ocean, rounded the tip of Africa, and returned to England on September 26th, 1580, having circumnavigated the globe. It was a first for a pirate, and only the second time anybody had accomplished that feat since Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, over half a century earlier.