Explorations

Portuguese sails under Spanish flag
Ferdinand Magellan was Portuguese but sailed on his unprecedented round-the-world expedition under the flag of Spain, Portugal's chief competitor in exploration. He had served as page at the Court of John II, the Portuguese king who turned down Columbus' request for financing a voyage west to India. Magellan also had been on Portuguese expeditions to the East Indies and had fought in Morocco, where he was wounded in action and permanently lamed. He was accused of trading with the Moroccans- tantamount to treason - denied a pension, and dismissed in 1517 from the armed forces.  Bitter at this treatment, Magellan joined the Spanish service.

First man on Everest
The explorer Edmund Hillary was the first man to reach the top of the highest bit of land anywhere on the face of the globe, Mount Everest, and he was a leader of the first expedition that crossed by land the entire Antarctic continent from sea to sea.

First Circumnavigator of the world
Juan Sebastian del Cano, a spanish navigator, deserves the title of the world's first circumnavigator. When his keeper Ferdinand Magellan was killed in a squabble with natives in the Philippines, Cano assumed command of the Magellan expedition and sailed the Victoria across the Indian Ocean, around the southern tip of Africa, and back to Spain, arriving September 8, 1522, 3 years after setting sail. Cano died four years later on a second expedition to the far Pacific.