We all know that curiosity killed the cat, but Mrs. RWP says that finding out brought it back. I wondered what route the QM took from England to reach her destination on the west, repeat, west coast of the United States. Did she go across the North Atlantic and through the Panama Canal? If she was too large to fit through the Panama Canal did she go into the South Atlantic and around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America? Did she sail around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa instead, into the Indian Ocean and ultimately eastward across the Pacific Ocean to reach Long Beach?
I began searching, and found the answer rather quickly, actually. The QM went around Cape Horn. However, one thing leads to another in my crazy brain and I didn't stop there; I found myself looking at other topics:
- Cape Horn (the headland at the southern tip of South America, not to be confused with the Cape of Good Hope, which is the headland at the southern tip of Africa)
- Straits of Magellan
- Tierra del Fuego
- Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina
- How many islands does Chile have? (answer near end of post)
- Which country has the most islands? (I was thinking Indonesia but the correct answer is Sweden. In fact, three countries--Sweden, Norway, and Finland--have more islands than Indonesia, which is in fourth place when it comes to islands. Chile is in tenth place. Australia--AUSTRALIA--is in seventh place, three places ahead of Chile. The only island in Australia I knew about is Tasmania. I must be slipping.)
- How many islands does Sweden have? (answer near end of post)
- Who discovered Diego Ramirez? (It wasn't Magellan. No, friends, it was the Garcia de Nodal expedition that was sent out by King Philip II of Spain in 1618, almost a century after Magellan, which was led by the Portuguese brothers Bartolomeu and Gonçalo Nodal, that discovered the Diego Ramirez Islands, the most southerly point visited by Europeans up to that time.)
- Who was Diego Ramirez? (Diego Ramirez de Arellano Chamás was the cosmographer of the Garcia de Nodal expedition.)
- What is cosmograhpy? (According to Wikipedia, cosmography is the science that maps the general features of the cosmos or universe, describing both heaven and Earth, but without encroaching on geography or astronomy.)
- Diego Garcia (a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles away from the southern tip of South America. We need not concern ourselves with them right now.)
- Who discovered Tierra del Fuego? (That wasn't Magellan either. It was a couple of Dutch guys.)
- Falkland Islands
- Drake Passage
- Sir Francis Drake
- Antarctica
- South Shetland Islands
- Magellan Expedition (now, there is some
juicyriveting reading right there) - Drake circumnavigation
Tierra del Fuego is not an island at all. It is an archipelago.
The Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina is also known as the Treaty of Peace abd Friendship of 1985 between Chile and Argentina.
Chile has 5,000 islands, Sweden has 267,570 islands.
I know. It's unbelievable, isn't it?
Ferdinand Magellan did not circumnavigate the world. He was killed in the Philippines, but he led an expedition, part of which eventually completed the first circumnavigation of the world without him.
I do enjoy history and geography. I hope you enjoyed this little foray into them today.
You know what they say. Those who do not learn from history or geography are probably no good at spelling either.
Your assigmment for extra credit, should you wish to accept it, is to find out how the term New Albion is related to this post.
Finally, here is a drawing of Magellan's ship Victoria, a detail from a 1590 map by Abraham Ortelius:
