The trips of Marco Polo, is the travel book of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, known in Italian as Il Milione (The million). The book recounts Marco Polo's travels to China, which he calls Cathay (north China) and Mangi (south China). Polo supposedly dictated his work to an amanuensis, Rustichello of Pisa, who was its authentic author, based on stories of Italian merchants and his fantasy while he was imprisoned in Genoa in 1298 and 1299; Marco Polo alone is the protagonist novel character. The book was originally written in Old French or in a variant known as Franco-Italian, and the title of the oldest surviving manuscript is Le divisament dou monde.
The expedition of Magallanes and Elcano was a maritime expedition of the XVI century financed by the Spanish Crown and captained by Ferdinand Magellan. This expedition, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano on his return, completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in history. The expedition had the purpose of opening a commercial route with the islands of spices in the west, looking for a passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It was formed by five ships that departed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519. The squadron, after having explored for months the American coast in southern Brazil, managed to cross the Strait of Magellan on November 21, 1520. In its crossing the Pacific came to the Philippine Islands, where, on April 27, 1521, Fernando de Magallanes dies in the battle of Mactan. The expeditionaries continued sailing to the Moluccan Islands, the objective of their trip, where they chose Juan Sebastián Elcano to captain the return trip. Sailing westward through the Indian Ocean and circling Africa, on September 6, 1522 the Victoria, the only ship left in the expedition, returned to Sanlúcar de Barrameda with its cargo of spices, becoming the first vessel of the history in going around the world.
