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History Oddities 4

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  Magellan.   Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) was the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean.   He started out with 5 ships, and only one ship, the Victoria ,   made it back home after sailing around the world for 3 years.   It started with 270 crew members, but only 18 of the original crew survived.   He was Portuguese, but sailed for Spain and could not speak Spanish.   The grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who funded Columbus, now funded Magellan.   In April 1521, Magellan was killed in the Philippines when Mactan natives refused to be converted to Christianity and a battle broke out.   The final trip back to Spain was led by Juan Sebastian Elcano.   The trip around the world covered 50,610 miles.   [source: “Magellan was first to sail around the world, right?   Think again,” Blakemore, National Geographic , Sep 19, 2019]   Magic Mirrors.   In the sixteenth century missionaries brought Christianity to Japan! In the 17 th Century the shogunate made Christianity
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History Oddities 3

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  Inca Empire.   The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, stretching 770,000 square miles with a population of as many as 37 million people.   It lasted from 1438 to 1533.   They created a highway and road system in Peru with over 25,000 miles of roads.   The Incas were the first to cultivate the potato in the region.   The Inca had no writing system.   They used knotted strings for record keeping.   The Inca lacked wheeled vehicles.   They lacked the knowledge of iron and steel.   The Inca Empire functioned without money or without markets.   When the Spanish killed the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, the Spanish crowned Atahualpa’s younger brother, Manco, as their puppet emperor.   The Incas fought the Spanish until 1572, when its last city, Vilcabamba, was captured.     [source: Jarus, “The Inca Empire,” Live Science, Nov 5, 2018]   Iwo Jima.   The Battle of Iwo Jima was an epic military campaign between 70,000 U.S. Marines and 21,000 troops of the Imperial A
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