Who am I?

Not often are men remembered not for the destination, but for the journey itself. In my case the latter is true, but should you even know my name? Probably, but not for the reasons you link to my fame. I came closer than most to reaching the starting point, but near the end my head swelled, my religion gave me a false set of armor, I was in dire straights and I went down to the natives in a glorious blaze of utter stupidity. I was forgotten for something I almost did, eventually I was resurrected, and now I’m remembered for something I never did. Alas, this is the circle of life.

Who am I?

(Answer below)

Answer:

Ferdinand Magellan led a fleet of four ships and a crew of more than 230 men on a journey west to secure the Spice Islands in Indonesia, starting from Spain in 1519. Along the way he named the Pacific Ocean, had a strait named after him, quelled a major mutiny attempt and overcame obstacle after obstacle, he and his crew subsisting for a great deal of the time on leather boots and other tidly scraps. By the time he reached the Philippines, still alive after so much travesty, he felt that he was a divine tool of God, and subsequently invincible. He tested out his theory in an unnecessary battle with the natives, and wound up somewhere on the ocean floor in many, many pieces.

In the end only nineteen members aboard one remaining ship reached Spain, the only true original circumnavigators of the globe. Captain Juan Sebastian del Cano took most of the credit and virtually ignored any help on the part of Magellan. For several hundred years Cano was the famous man who circled the earth, but one of the surviving crew members, Antonio Pigafetta, had kept a detailed diary of the voyage. Because Spanish elites disliked Magellan, they suppressed the journal for as long as they lived, but the record eventually came out, and scholars began to look at Magellan in a different light, so that now he is credited with the incredible feat, though he died thousands of miles from the final point, and Juan Sebastian del Cano and eighteen other survivors receive absolutely no recognition.