News about Ferdinand Magellan

Cody Cassidy's book How To Survive History explores how a time traveller with the benefit of hindsight and modern science could survive some of history's biggest disasters. But while Cassidy claims his book is 'an entirely serious attempt to guide a visitor through our planet's greatest catastrophes and adventures', it is more a fun exercise in 'What If?' As such, it's a very enjoyable read.

The dwarf galaxies (pictured main), which can be seen from the naked eye of the Southern Hemisphere, have been on display for more than 1,000 years after being discovered by indigenous peoples from South America, Australia, and Africa. However, they are named after Ferdinand Magellan (inset), a 16th-century Portuguese explorer who claimed to have found them with his crew during his first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522. However, this does not go well with a group of astronomers in the United States. Magellan was described by Mia de los Reyes, an assistant professor of astronomy at Amherst College, Massachusetts, as "a colonizer, a slave, and a murderer."