title: Flying ointment

text: The synergy between belladonna and poppy alkaloids was made use of in the so-called "twilight sleep" that was provided for women during childbirth beginning in the Edwardian era. Twilight sleep was a mixture of scopolamine, a belladonna alkaloid, and morphine, a "Papaver" alkaloid, that was injected and which furnished a combination of painkilling and amnesia for a woman in labor. A version is still manufactured for use as the injectable compound "Omnopon".


title: Flying ointment

text: There is no definite indication of the proportions of solanaceous herbs vs. poppy used in flying ointments, and most historical recipes for flying ointment do not include poppy.


title: Flying ointment

text: Furthermore, a reputable publication by the former UK Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (now DEFRA) states specifically that, in cases of poisoning by "Atropa belladonna" - far from being antidotes - 'Preparations containing morphine or opiates should be "avoided" as they have a synergic action with atropine'; an appropriate antidote being, by contrast, the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor physostigmine salicylate.


title: Flying ointment

text: The first mention of an unguent in relation to a popular belief of orgiastic flying occurs in Roland of Cremona's theological summa, written in the 1230s. The use by witches of flying ointments was first described, according to known sources, by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456.


title: Flying ointment

text: It was also described by the Spanish theologian Alfonso Tostado (d. 1455) in "Super Genesis Commentaria" (printed in Venice, 1507), whose commentary tended to accredit the thesis of the reality of the Witches' Sabbath. In 1477 Antone Rose confessed that the devil gave her a stick 18 inches in length on which she would rub an ointment and with the words "go, in the name of the Devil, go" would fly to the "synagogue" (an alternative name for Sabbath in early witchcraft).


title: Flying ointment

text: There is, in the work of the playwright Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla (1607-1648) of Toledo, an exchange concerning the flying ointment, the (following) passage occurring in the play


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay's "The History of England", which expressed his contention of the superiority of the Western European culture and of the inevitability of its sociopolitical progress, is a seminal example of Whig history that remains commended for its prose style.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple in Leicestershire on 25 October 1800, the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist, and Selina Mills of Bristol, a former pupil of Hannah More. They named their first child after his uncle Thomas Babington, a Leicestershire landowner and politician, who had married Zachary's sister Jean. The young Macaulay was noted as a child prodigy; as a toddler, gazing out of the window from his cot at the chimneys of a local factory, he is reputed to have asked his father whether the smoke came from the fires of hell.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: He was educated at a private school in Hertfordshire, and, subsequently, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won several prizes, including the Chancellor's Gold Medal in June 1821, and where he in 1825 published a prominent essay on Milton in the "Edinburgh Review". Macaulay did not whilst at Cambridge study classical literature, which he subsequently read in India. He in his letters describes his reading of the "Aeneid" whilst he was in Malvern in 1851, when he claims to have been moved to tears by Virgil's poetry. He taught himself German, Dutch, and Spanish, and was fluent in French. He studied law and he was in 1826 called to the bar, before he took more interest in a political career. Macaulay in the "Edinburgh Review" in 1827, and in a series of anonymous letters to the "Morning Chronicle" newspaper, censured the analysis of indentured labour by the British Colonial Office expert Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt. Macaulay's evangelical Whig father Zachary Macaulay, who desired a 'free black peasantry' rather than equality for Africans, also censured, in the "Anti-Slavery Reporter", Moody's contentions.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay, who did not marry nor have children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with Maria Kinnaird, who was the monetarily wealthy ward of Richard 'Conversation' Sharp. Macaulay's strongest emotional relationships were with his youngest sisters: Margaret, who died while he was in India, and Hannah, to whose daughter Margaret, whom he called 'Baba', he was also attached.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay in 1830 accepted the invitation of Marquess of Lansdowne that he become Member of Parliament for the pocket borough of Calne. Macaulay's maiden speech in Parliament was advocated abolition of the civil disabilities of the Jews in the UK. Macaulay's subsequent speeches in favour of parliamentary reform were commended. He became MP for Leeds subsequent to the 1833 enactment of the Reform Act 1832, by which Calne's representation was reduced from two MPs to one, and by which Leeds, which had not been represented before, had two MPs. Macaulay remained grateful to his former patron, Lansdowne, who remained his friend.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay was Secretary to the Board of Control under Lord Grey from 1832 until he in 1833 required, as a consequence of the penury of his father, a more remunerative office, than that of the unremunerated office of an MP, from which he resigned after the passing of the Government of India Act 1833 to accept an appointment as first Law Member of the Governor-General's Council. Macaulay in 1834 went to India, where he served on the Supreme Council between 1834 and 1838.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: His "Minute on Indian Education" of February 1835 was primarily responsible for the introduction of Western institutional education to India.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay recommended the introduction of the English language as the official language of secondary education instruction in all schools where there had been none before, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers. Macaulay's "Minute on Indian Education" contended that "a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. Honours might be roughly even in works of the imagination, such as poetry, but when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In his celebrated "Minute on Indian Education" of February 1835, Macaulay urged Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General to reform secondary education on utilitarian lines to deliver "useful learning" – a phrase that to Macaulay was synonymous with Western culture. There was no tradition of secondary education in vernacular languages; the institutions then supported by the East India Company taught either in Sanskrit or Persian. Hence, he argued, "We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language." Macaulay argued that Sanskrit and Persian were no more accessible than English to the speakers of the Indian vernacular languages and existing Sanskrit and Persian texts were of little use for 'useful learning'. In one of the less scathing passages of the Minute he wrote:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Neither Sanskrit nor Arabic poetry matched that of Europe; in other branches of learning the disparity was even greater, he argued:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Hence, from the sixth year of schooling onwards, instruction should be in European learning, with English as the medium of instruction. This would create a class of anglicised Indians who would serve as cultural intermediaries between the British and the Indians; the creation of such a class was necessary before any reform of vernacular education:I feel... that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay's minute largely coincided with Bentinck's views and Bentinck's English Education Act 1835 closely matched Macaulay's recommendations (in 1836, a school named La Martinière, founded by Major General Claude Martin, had one of its houses named after him), but subsequent Governors-General took a more conciliatory approach to existing Indian education.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: His final years in India were devoted to the creation of a Penal Code, as the leading member of the Law Commission. In the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, Macaulay's criminal law proposal was enacted. The Indian Penal Code in 1860 was followed by the Criminal Procedure Code in 1872 and the Civil Procedure Code in 1908. The Indian Penal Code inspired counterparts in most other British colonies, and to date many of these laws are still in effect in places as far apart as Pakistan, Singapore, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, as well as in India itself. This includes Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which remains the basis for laws which criminalize homosexuality in several Commonwealth nations.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In Indian culture, the term "Macaulay's Children" is sometimes used to refer to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt Western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by colonialism ("Macaulayism") – expressions used disparagingly, and with the implication of disloyalty to one's country and one's heritage. In independent India, Macaulay's idea of the civilising mission has been used by Dalitists, in particular by neo-liberalist Chandra Bhan Prasad, as a "creative appropriation for self-empowerment", based on the view that the Dalit community was empowered by Macaulay's deprecation of Hindu culture and support for Western-style education in India.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Domenico Losurdo states that "Macaulay acknowledged that the English colonists in India behaved like Spartans confronting "helots": we are dealing with 'a race of sovereign' or a 'sovereign caste', wielding absolute power over its 'serfs'." Losurdo noted that this did not prompt any doubts from Macaulay over the right of Britain to administer its colonies in an autocratic fashion; for example, while Macaulay described the administration of governor-general of India Warren Hastings as being so despotic that "all the injustice of former oppressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing", he (Hastings) deserved "high admiration" and a rank among "the most remarkable men in our history" for "having saved England and civilisation".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Returning to Britain in 1838, he became MP for Edinburgh in the following year. He was made Secretary at War in 1839 by Lord Melbourne and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year. In 1841 Macaulay addressed the issue of copyright law. Macaulay's position, slightly modified, became the basis of copyright law in the English-speaking world for many decades. Macaulay argued that copyright is a monopoly and as such has generally negative effects on society. After the fall of Melbourne's government in 1841 Macaulay devoted more time to literary work, and returned to office as Paymaster-General in 1846 in Lord John Russell's administration.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In the election of 1847 he lost his seat in Edinburgh. He attributed the loss to the anger of religious zealots over his speech in favour of expanding the annual government grant to Maynooth College in Ireland, which trained young men for the Catholic priesthood; some observers also attributed his loss to his neglect of local issues. In 1849 he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow, a position with no administrative duties, often awarded by the students to men of political or literary fame. He also received the freedom of the city.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In 1852, the voters of Edinburgh offered to re-elect him to Parliament. He accepted on the express condition that he need not campaign and would not pledge himself to a position on any political issue. Remarkably, he was elected on those terms. He seldom attended the House due to ill health. His weakness after suffering a heart attack caused him to postpone for several months making his speech of thanks to the Edinburgh voters. He resigned his seat in January 1856. In 1857 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay, of Rothley in the County of Leicester, but seldom attended the House of Lords.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay sat on the committee to decide on the historical subjects to be painted in the new Palace of Westminster. The need to collect reliable portraits of notable figures from history for this project led to the foundation of the National Portrait Gallery, which was formally established on 2 December 1856. Macaulay was amongst its founding trustees and is honoured with one of only three busts above the main entrance.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: During his later years his health made work increasingly difficult for him. He died of a heart attack on 28 December 1859, aged 59, leaving his major work, "The History of England from the Accession of James the Second" incomplete. On 9 January 1860 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poets' Corner, near a statue of Addison. As he had no children, his peerage became extinct on his death.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay's nephew, Sir George Trevelyan, Bt, wrote the "Life and Letters" of his uncle. His great-nephew was the Cambridge historian G. M. Trevelyan.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: As a young man he composed the ballads "Ivry" and "The Armada", which he later included as part of "Lays of Ancient Rome", a series of very popular poems about heroic episodes in Roman history which he began composing in India and continued in Rome, finally publishing in 1842. The most famous of them, "", concerns the heroism of Horatius Cocles. It contains the oft-quoted lines:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: His essays, originally published in the "Edinburgh Review", were collected as "Critical and Historical Essays" in 1843.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: During the 1840s, Macaulay undertook his most famous work, "The History of England from the Accession of James the Second", publishing the first two volumes in 1848. At first, he had planned to bring his history down to the reign of George III. After publication of his first two volumes, his hope was to complete his work with the death of Queen Anne in 1714.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: The third and fourth volumes, bringing the history to the Peace of Ryswick, were published in 1855. At his death in 1859 he was working on the fifth volume. This, bringing the "History" down to the death of William III, was prepared for publication by his sister, Lady Trevelyan, after his death.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay's political writings are famous for their ringing prose and for their confident, sometimes dogmatic, emphasis on a progressive model of British history, according to which the country threw off superstition, autocracy and confusion to create a balanced constitution and a forward-looking culture combined with freedom of belief and expression. This model of human progress has been called the Whig interpretation of history. This philosophy appears most clearly in the essays Macaulay wrote for the "Edinburgh Review" and other publications, which were collected in book form and a steady best-seller throughout the 19th century. But it is also reflected in "History"; the most stirring passages in the work are those that describe the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688.


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Macaulay's approach has been criticised by later historians for its one-sidedness and its complacency. Karl Marx referred to him as a 'systematic falsifier of history'. His tendency to see history as a drama led him to treat figures whose views he opposed as if they were villains, while characters he approved of were presented as heroes. Macaulay goes to considerable length, for example, to absolve his main hero William III of any responsibility for the Glencoe massacre. Winston Churchill devoted a of the Duke of Marlborough to rebutting Macaulay's slights on his ancestor, expressing hope "to fasten the label 'Liar' to his genteel coat-tails".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: The Liberal historian Lord Acton read Macaulay's "History of England" four times and later described himself as "a raw English schoolboy, primed to the brim with Whig politics" but "not Whiggism only, but Macaulay in particular that I was so full of." However, after coming under German influence Acton would later find fault in Macaulay. In 1880 Acton classed Macaulay (with Burke and Gladstone) as one "of the three greatest Liberals". In 1883, he advised Mary Gladstone:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In 1888, Acton wrote that Macaulay "had done more than any writer in the literature of the world for the propagation of the Liberal faith, and he was not only the greatest, but the most representative, Englishman then living".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: W. S. Gilbert described Macaulay's wit, "who wrote of Queen Anne" as part of Colonel Calverley's Act I patter song in the libretto of the 1881 operetta "Patience". (This line may well have been a joke about the Colonel's pseudo-intellectual bragging, as most educated Victorians knew that Macaulay did "not" write of Queen Anne; the "History" encompasses only as far as the death of William III in 1702, who was succeeded by Anne.)


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Herbert Butterfield's "The Whig Interpretation of History" (1931) attacked Whig history. The Dutch historian Pieter Geyl, writing in 1955, considered Macaulay's "Essays" as "exclusively and intolerantly English".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: On 7 February 1954, Lord Moran, doctor to the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, recorded in his diary:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: George Richard Potter, Professor and Head of the Department of History at the University of Sheffield from 1931 to 1965, claimed "In an age of long letters ... Macaulay's hold their own with the best". However Potter also claimed:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: With regards to Macaulay's determination to inspect physically the places mentioned in his "History", Potter said:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Potter noted that Macaulay has had many critics, some of whom put forward some salient points about the deficiency of Macaulay's "History" but added: "The severity and the minuteness of the criticism to which the "History of England" has been subjected is a measure of its permanent value. It is worth every ounce of powder and shot that is fired against it." Potter concluded that "in the long roll of English historical writing from Clarendon to Trevelyan only Gibbon has surpassed him in security of reputation and certainty of immortality".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: Piers Brendon wrote that Macaulay is "the only British rival to Gibbon." In 1972, J. R. Western wrote that: "Despite its age and blemishes, Macaulay's "History of England" has still to be superseded by a full-scale modern history of the period." In 1974 J. P. Kenyon stated that: "As is often the case, Macaulay had it exactly right."


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: W. A. Speck wrote in 1980, that a reason Macaulay's "History of England" "still commands respect is that it was based upon a prodigious amount of research". Speck claimed:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: On the other hand, Speck also wrote that Macaulay "took pains to present the virtues even of a rogue, and he painted the virtuous warts and all", and that "he was never guilty of suppressing or distorting evidence to make it support a proposition which he knew to be untrue". Speck concluded:


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In 1982, Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote: Himmelfarb also laments that "the history of the "History" is a sad testimonial to the cultural regression of our times".


title: Thomas Babington Macaulay

text: In the novel "Marathon Man" and its film adaptation, the protagonist was named 'Thomas Babington' after Macaulay.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a Christmas children's story by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel written in rhymed verse with illustrations by the author. It follows the Grinch, a grouchy, solitary creature who tries to cancel Christmas by stealing Christmas gifts and decorations from the homes of the nearby town of Whoville on Christmas Eve. Miraculously, the Grinch realizes that Christmas is not all about money and presents.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The story was published as a book by Random House in 1957, and at approximately the same time in an issue of "Redbook". The book criticizes the commercialization of Christmas and the holiday season.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The book has been adapted many times, first as a 1966 animated TV film narrated by Boris Karloff, who also provided the Grinch's voice. In 1977, a Halloween prequel, "Halloween Is Grinch Night", aired with the Grinch voiced by Hans Conried. These were followed with a 2000 live-action feature film starring Jim Carrey, a 2007 musical, a 2018 computer-animated film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, a 2020 live television adaptation of the musical starring Matthew Morrison, and an unauthorized parody, a 2022 slasher horror film starring David Howard Thornton.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The Grinch is a grouchy, solitary creature with a heart "two sizes too small." He resides in a cave on a mountain north of Whoville, home of the cheerful and warmhearted Whos. Having been annoyed by Whoville's noisy Christmas festivities for fifty-three years, the Grinch resolves to stop Christmas from coming. He disguises himself as Santa Claus and travels to Whoville on a sleigh pulled by his dog, Max. The Grinch slides down the chimney of the first house on the square and steals all the presents, the food for the feast, and the Christmas tree. He is briefly interrupted by Cindy Lou Who, a young Who girl, but concocts a crafty lie to convince her to go back to bed so that he can escape.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: After doing the same to the other Who houses, the Grinch takes his sleigh to the top of Mount Crumpit and prepares to dump all of the stolen belongings into the abyss. As dawn breaks, he expects to hear the Whos crying, but is shocked to hear them singing a joyous Christmas song instead. After much thought, the Grinch comes to realize that Christmas "means a little bit more" than just presents and feasting, causing his shrunken heart to grow three sizes larger. The reformed Grinch returns the Whos' presents and food and is asked to take part in their Christmas feast.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The Grinch first appeared in a 33-line illustrated poem by Dr. Seuss called "The Hoobub and the Grinch," which was originally published in the May 1955 edition of "Redbook" magazine. Dr. Seuss began work on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" a couple of years later, around the beginning of 1957. He had recently completed "The Cat in the Hat" and was in the midst of founding Beginner Books with Phyllis and Bennett Cerf and his wife, Helen Palmer Geisel. Helen, who had ongoing medical problems and had suffered a small stroke in April 1957, nevertheless acted as an unofficial editor, as she had with previous Dr. Seuss books.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Dr. Seuss claimed he was the inspiration for the character, as his wife's health problems and his dismay with the commercialization of Christmas made him feel "very Grinchish" as he looked in the mirror one year on December 26.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Dr. Seuss wrote the book quickly and was mostly finished with it within a few weeks. Biographers Judith and Neil Morgan wrote, "It was the easiest book of his career to write, except for its conclusion." According to Dr. Seuss:


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: I got hung up getting the Grinch out of the mess. I got into a situation where I sounded like a second-rate preacher or some biblical truism... Finally in desperation... without making any statement whatever, I showed the Grinch and the Whos together at the table, and made a pun of the Grinch carving the 'roast beast.' ... I had gone through thousands of religious choices, and then after three months it came out like that.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: By mid-May 1957, the book was finished and in the mail to the Random House offices in New York. In June, Dr. Seuss and Helen took a month-long vacation to Hawaii, where he checked and returned the book's galley proof. The book debuted in December 1957, in both a book version published by Random House and in an issue of "Redbook". Dr. Seuss dedicated the book to Theodor "Teddy" Owens, the one-year-old son of his niece, Peggy Owens.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: As of 2005, the book had been translated into nine languages, including Latin as "Quomodo Invidiosulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit". The translation was published in October 1998 by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers Inc.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: M. S. Libby, writing in the "New York Herald Tribune", compared the book favorably to Dr. Seuss's earlier works: "His peculiar and original genius in line and word is always the same, yet, so rich are the variations he plays on his themes, always fresh and amusing." "Kirkus Reviews" wrote, "Youngsters will be in transports over the goofy gaiety of Dr. Seuss's first book about a villain." The reviewer called the Grinch "easily the best Christmas-cad since Scrooge." Ellen Lewis Buell, in her review in "The New York Times", praised the book's handling of its moral, as well as its illustrations and verse. She wrote:


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Even if you prefer Dr. Seuss in a purely antic mood, you must admit that if there's a moral to be pointed out, no one can do it more gaily. The reader is swept along by the ebullient rhymes and the weirdly zany pictures until he is limp with relief when the Grinch reforms and, like the latter, mellow with good feelings.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The review for "The Saturday Review of Literature" stated: "The inimitable Dr. Seuss has brought off a fresh triumph in his new picture book... The verse is as lively and the pages are as bright and colorful as anyone could wish." The reviewer suggested that parents and older siblings reading the book to young children would also enjoy its moral and humor. Charlotte Jackson of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called the book "wonderful fantasy, in the true Dr. Seuss manner, with pictures in the Christmas colors."


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Some writers, including Dr. Seuss, have made a connection between the Grinch and Dr. Seuss. In the story, the Grinch laments that he has had to put up with the Whos' celebration of Christmas for 53 years. As both Thomas Fensch and Charles Cohen note, Dr. Seuss was 53 when he wrote and published the book. Dr. Seuss asserted the connection in an article in the December 1957 edition of "Redbook": "I was brushing my teeth on the morning of the 26th of last December when I noticed a very Grinch-ish countenance in the mirror. It was Seuss! So I wrote about my sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I could rediscover something about Christmas that obviously I'd lost." Seuss's step-daughter, Lark Dimond-Cates, stated in a speech in 2003, "I always thought the Cat... was Ted on his good days, and the Grinch was Ted on his bad days." Cohen notes that Seuss drove a car with a license plate that read "GRINCH".


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Thomas Fensch notes that the Grinch is the first adult and the first villain to be a main character in a Dr. Seuss book.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The book has been adapted into a variety of media, including stage and film. Chuck Jones and Ben Washam adapted the story as an animated television special in 1966, featuring narration by Boris Karloff, who also provided the Grinch's voice. Thurl Ravenscroft sang "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch", with lyrics written by Dr. Seuss himself. A prequel called "Halloween Is Grinch Night" aired on ABC on October 28, 1977. Hans Conried was the voice of the Grinch and the Narrator because Boris Karloff had died in 1969. A crossover special called "The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat" aired on ABC on May 20, 1982. In 2000, the book was adapted into a live-action film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Illumination Entertainment also developed a 3D animated feature film, titled "The Grinch" directed by Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the Grinch. It was originally scheduled to be released on November 10, 2017, but was pushed back to November 9, 2018. In 2022, the book was adapted into a horror film, directed by Steven LaMorte and starring David Howard Thornton as the Grinch.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Several audio recordings and audio-visual adaptations of the book have also been published. In 1975, Zero Mostel narrated an LP record of the story. In 1992, Random House Home Video released an updated animated version of the book narrated by Walter Matthau, also including the story, "If I Ran The Zoo". In 2009, an interactive e-book version was released for the iPhone. In 2000, Rik Mayall read the book as one of four of Seuss's books on the audio CD "The Dr Seuss Collection".


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: A musical stage version was produced by the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego in 2007. It also was produced on Broadway and a limited-engagement US tour in 2008. The North American Tour began in the fall of 2010 and has subsequently toured every fall since. The book was adapted into a 13-minute song, performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra, arranged by Danny Troob, and featuring bassist Reid Burton and actor Will LeBow narrating it on the Boston Pops's 2013 CD, "A Boston Pops Christmas – Live from Symphony Hall with Keith Lockhart"


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 it was ranked 61st among the "Top 100 Picture Books" in a survey published by "School Library Journal" – the fourth of five Dr. Seuss books on the list.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: The book's main characters have made appearances in other works. The Grinch appears in the animated specials "Halloween Is Grinch Night" and "The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat". Max, the Grinch's dog, and the Grinch himself also appear in the children's puppet show "The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss". The Grinch, Cindy Lou Who, and Max, appear in "Seussical", a musical which takes its plot from several Dr. Seuss books.


title: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

text: Since the book was written, the word "grinch" has entered the popular lexicon as an informal noun, defined as a "killjoy" or a "spoilsport."


title: Thupparivaalan

text: Thupparivaalan () is a 2017 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by Mysskin. The film is produced by Vishal, who also stars in the lead role with Simran. The film also features Prasanna, Vinay, Anu Emmanuel, Andrea Jeremiah and K. Bhagyaraj. The film and its titular protagonist were both loosely inspired by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character, Sherlock Holmes; he has been given the credits in the opening of the film. The film's narrative centres on Kaniyan Pongundran, a detective who starts investigating the murder of a kid's pet dog, and soon finds himself threatened by the criminal behind a much bigger conspiracy.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: The film was launched in March 2016, and was released on 14 September 2017. Directed by Vishal, a sequel titled "Thupparivaalan 2" was set to release in 2020, with Vishal and Prasanna reprising their roles.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: The film starts with Dhivakar and his family celebrating his birthday, where a sudden lightning strike kills him and his son and burns them to death. At a movie theatre, a man gropes a woman, and a small commotion ensues, which was stopped by ACP Paul Dhanarajan, who later dies in the middle of a police conference. The plot shifts to detective Kaniyan Poongundran, who lives with his associate Manohar. They both come across Mallika through a pickpocketing incident where she gets caught. Later, she comes to work as a housekeeper at Kaniyan's house.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: One day, a schoolboy named Naveen, visits Kaniyan and Manohar with the case that his pet German Spitz (inaccurately identified as a Pomeranian), Nemo was shot dead and asked them to find the killer. Naveen gives them the bullet from Nemo's body. Kaniyan finds that it is a 9mm bullet which had been ricocheted from Nemo. At the crime scene, he finds a tooth, whose owner is traced to be Swarnavel, who was formerly a university physics professor who divorced his wife because he blamed her for the death of their son. Most recently, he was living alone and working as a stockbroker. Meanwhile, a shady man named Kamalesh visits a travel agency to deliver a sofa stashed with money to five people who run the agency and who are believed to be assassins: Devil, Muthu, Pritha, a stout man, and a bald man.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: Kaniyan recollects a news article about an incident that involves the deaths of Dhivakar and his son and goes to Mrs. Dhivakar's house, where she reveals that thunder occurred in the beginning, followed by lightning, which struck Dhivakar and their son. Kaniyan also finds that Swarnavel was present at a nearby construction site on the day of the incident. He then concludes that it was artificial lightning devised by Swarnavel to kill Dhivakar. When the assassins learn that Kaniyan is on their tail, Devil disposes of the body of Swarnavel, who was killed earlier. Kaniyan and Manohar visit Dhivakar's office and learn that a tender which was to be awarded to Dhivakar is now with Ram Prasad, the chairman and head of the company that Dhivakar competed with.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: Before they could reach Ram Prasad, he is assassinated. Infuriated that their client Ram had to be killed, Kamalesh hires Chinese mercenaries to kill Kaniyan under the pretext of inviting him and Manohar to a Chinese restaurant. Kaniyan defeats them and finds out about Kamalesh's involvement, but Kamalesh is seduced and killed by Pritha before they arrive (but Pritha is seen by Kaniyan while leaving). A police chase occurs as Pritha and the bald man try to escape but are later cornered from all sides. Soon after, the bald man kills himself by performing seppuku, allowing Pritha an opportunity to escape the scene. The next day in a shopping mall, Pritha makes a failed attempt to kill Kaniyan, who is saved by Mallika.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: Kaniyan and Manohar meet Police Inspector Madhivanan and ACP Vijayakumar in a hotel, where yet another failed assassin attempt is made. Muthu plans to inject Kaniyan with a poison dart, but Manohar was caught in the crossfire and is rushed to the hospital. They learn that Manohar was hit by the same dart as Paul. Kaniyan goes to the theatre to confirm this and gets to know that on the same day, three tickets were booked by the same person but in different rows. He gets the address from the credit card details. They raid the travel agency, and Devil kills Muthu to cover his tracks. They find some physics books related to lightning as well as a machine that generates artificial lighting.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: Kaniyan receives a threat via SMS, saying that his beloved ones are in danger. He ensures that Manohar is safe in the hospital, but could not save Mallika in time as she was stabbed by Devil. She pickpockets his mobile when he stabs her, through which Kaniyan gets to know about the Inspector who was keeping Devil informed about all the moves and status of the investigation. It is later revealed that Madhivanan was an informer for Devil. Kaniyan, Manohar, and a police team go in search of Devil to a mangrove forest. All of them die except Kaniyan, Manohar, and Vijayakumar. Later, Kaniyan and Vijayakumar are both caught by Devil, as he blackmails them using Naveen (who was also kidnapped by Devil).


title: Thupparivaalan

text: Tied by a rope, Kaniyan reveals how he managed to uncover Devil's backstory and tells him that the police have been informed of the same. Infuriated by this, Devil tries to stab Kaniyan, but Manohar manages to untie him just in time. In the ensuing scuffle, Kaniyan gains the upper hand despite their more or less equal size and skill in hand-to-hand combat; eventually, Kaniyan kills Devil. In his dying moments, Devil tells Naveen that he is sorry for killing Nemo. Later, as Naveen returns home from school one afternoon, he finds a Pomeranian puppy along with a note bearing Kaniyan's name in a basket at his doorstep.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: In February 2016, Mysskin begun working on a film in thriller genre for Vishal Film Factory. Starring Vishal in the lead role as a Detective, the film was titled "Thupparivaalan" and was formally launched at a ceremony in Chennai on 10 March 2016. In order to work on the film, Vishal delayed his commitments for Linguswamy's "Sandakozhi 2", while Mysskin put back commitments he had for a new film starring debutants Maitreyan and Tanya Ravichandran. Prior to the start of shoot, Mysskin cast several other leading actors and the film was dubbed by the media to be a "multi-starrer". Actress Rakul Preet Singh was cast in a leading role, making her comeback to Tamil films after becoming popular in the Telugu film industry. Likewise actors Vinay and Prasanna were signed to portray supporting roles. Veteran director K. Bhagyaraj was also selected to portray a key antagonistic role in the film.


title: Thupparivaalan

text: The film began production in Chennai on 26 September 2016 with scenes featuring Vishal and Prasanna being filmed during the first schedule. Soon after the shoot began, Rakul Preet Singh opted out of the film citing scheduling clashes with her commitments for AR Murugadoss's "Spyder" (2017), and was replaced by Malayalam actress Anu Emmanuel, who would make her debut in the Tamil film industry. Anu was signed following a test photo shoot in October 2016, where Mysskin asked her to sport a sari. Akshara Haasan was also signed on to portray another pivotal role in the film during the same month and was expected to shoot for the film alongside her commitments in the Ajith Kumar-starrer "Vivegam" (2017). Akshara later opted out of the project and was replaced in the role by Andrea Jeremiah. Mysskin signed Ashvatt for the pivotal role of Swarnavel, after he was impressed by the actor's earlier performance in his film "Pisaasu" and "Savarakathi". Interestingly, this is the first and the only time that Mysskin had worked with the same actor in three consecutive movies - Pisaasu, Savarakathi & "Thupparivaalan".


title: Thupparivaalan

text: The film's shoot progressed throughout late 2016 and early 2017, and by May 2017, there were only ten days more of the shoot required. Mysskin revealed that he was inspired by the tales of Sherlock Holmes when writing the film and stated Vishal's character would resemble the detective. Likewise, that Prasanna's character would be along the lines of Dr. Watson from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels. In August 2017, while filming an action scene, Vishal suffered a minor injury on his knee, while Vinay hurt his shoulders. The pair, however, chose to continue with the shoot to avoid delays. Unlike most Indian films, the makers avoided including multiple songs; the only song in the film is "Ivan Thupparivaalan", written by Mysskin (who sings along with Hemambiga) and composed by Arrol Corelli, who also composed the background music.


title: The Big Red One

text: The Big Red One is a 1980 American epic war film written and directed by Samuel Fuller, and starring Lee Marvin alongside an ensemble supporting cast, including Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Siegfried Rauch, Bobby Di Cicco, and Kelly Ward.


title: The Big Red One

text: Based on Fuller's own experiences, it was produced independently on a low budget, and shot on location in Israel as a cost-saving measure. It was heavily cut on its original release, but a restored version, "The Big Red One: The Reconstruction", premièred at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, seven years after Fuller's death. Fuller wrote a book with the same title, which was more a companion novel than a novelization of the film, although it features many of the scenes that were originally cut.


title: The Big Red One

text: Fuller was a World War II veteran and served with the 1st Infantry Division, which is nicknamed "The Big Red One" for the red numeral "1" on the division's shoulder patch. He received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart during his service. He was present at the liberation of the Falkenau concentration camp.


title: The Big Red One

text: World War I: In November 1918, a United States Army private kills a surrendering German Army soldier with his trench knife, thinking the surrender is a trick. When he returns to his company's headquarters, the private is told that the war ended four hours earlier.


title: The Big Red One

text: World War II: In November 1942, the US soldier, now a sergeant in the "Big Red One", leads his squad of infantrymen through North Africa; they are initially fired on by a Vichy French general, who is then overpowered by his French troops, who are loyal to Free France. Over the next two years, the squad is part of the Allied invasion of Sicily, where they are given intelligence on the location of a Tiger I tank and are fed by grateful Sicilian women; the landing on Omaha Beach at the start of the Normandy campaign; the liberation of France, where they battle Germans inside a mental asylum; and the invasion of western Germany. The sergeant's German Army counterpart, Schroeder, participates in many of these same battles, and at different times both he and the sergeant express the same sentiment that soldiers are killers, but not murderers, though Schroeder also displays a ruthless loyalty to Hitler and Germany.


title: The Big Red One

text: During the advance across northern France, the American squad crosses the former WWI battlefield on which the sergeant killed the surrendering German, where a memorial now stands to the earlier war. Schroeder has sprinkled his own living men among the German dead from a recent battle at this location, but the sergeant senses a trap and checks out the bodies in a burned-out tank. Noticing that the piping on the German uniforms is not consistent, he silently kills the living Germans in the tank. Feigning orders from his commander on the radio, the sergeant begins leading his men away, quietly telling them that living Germans are about. One of his new recruits sees a German move and shoots him, setting off a skirmish in which the Americans wipe out the Germans with only minor injuries in their own ranks. While the sergeant's squad are patching up their wounded, a French couple arrives on a motorcycle and sidecar. The husband dies of his previous wounds, but not before begging the sergeant to help his pregnant wife. The squad clears the tank and puts the woman, who is in active labor, in the tank. After a somewhat comical series of attempts to help the mother give birth, a child is born. Schroeder takes advantage of all of this excitement to sneak away unharmed.


title: The Big Red One

text: The squad's final action in the war is the liberation of Falkenau concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, during which the American soldiers are shocked by what they witness. The sergeant befriends a young boy he finds in the concentration camp, but the boy dies that same afternoon. Shortly after this, the sergeant is in a forest at night when Schroeder approaches him, attempting to surrender. The sergeant stabs Schroeder and then his squad arrives and informs him that the war in Europe ended four hours earlier. This time, as the squad walks away, Private Griff notices that Schroeder is still alive; the sergeant and his men work frantically to save his life as they return to their encampment. Private Zab, in voice-over, remarks that he and his fellow American troops have more in common with this Nazi soldier, because they have all been through the war and survived, than they do with all of the replacements they may have fought alongside, but who are dead.


title: The Big Red One

text: Warner Bros. was interested in filming "The Big Red One" in the late 1950s, sending Fuller on a trip to Europe to scout locations. Fuller directed "Merrill's Marauders" as a dry run for the film. When Fuller argued with Jack L. Warner and his studio over cuts they made to "Merrill's Marauders", the plans for "The Big Red One" were dropped.


title: The Big Red One

text: In the project's early stages, at Jack L. Warner's urging, John Wayne was lined up to play the sergeant, but Fuller felt that he was not right for the role.


title: The Big Red One

text: Peter Bogdanovich helped set up the film at Paramount Pictures, which paid Fuller to write a script. When Paramount head Frank Yablans left the studio, though, the project was put in turnaround. It shifted over to Lorimar with Bogdanovich to produce (he says Fuller wanted him to play the Robert Carradine part), but then Bogdanovich pulled out and brought in Gene Corman to produce.


title: The Big Red One

text: The restored version, dubbed "the Reconstruction" and completed in 2004, adds 47 minutes to the film's running time, bringing it much closer to the form Fuller imagined before the studio took it away from him. Film critic Richard Schickel — who praised the 1980 version in "Time" when it was released — took the lead on the restoration, which relied on locating footage allegedly stashed in the Warner Bros. vault in Kansas City. He was aided by editor Bryan McKenzie and Bogdanovich.


title: The Big Red One

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 90% approval rating with an average rating of 7.8/10, based on 48 reviews. For "the Reconstruction" cut, Metacritic assigned a score of 77 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Big Red One

text: In his review of the original, theatrical version of the film, Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, and wrote: While this is an expensive epic, he hasn't fallen to the temptations of the epic form. He doesn't give us a lot of phony meaning, as if to justify the scope of the production. There aren't a lot of deep, significant speeches. In the ways that count, "The Big Red One" is still a B-movie – hard-boiled, filled with action, held together by male camaraderie, directed with a lean economy of action. It's one of the most expensive B-pictures ever made, and I think that helps it fit the subject. "A" war movies are about war, but "B" war movies are about soldiers.


title: The Big Red One

text: In November 2004, Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, and added it to his list of "great movies".


title: The Big Red One

text: "The Big Red One" ranks 483rd on "Empire" magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.Terry Lawson of the "Detroit Free Press" called it the greatest war movie of all time.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Juan Sebastián Elcano (Elkano in modern Basque; sometimes given as "del Cano"; 1486/1487 – 4 August 1526) was a Spanish navigator, ship-owner and explorer of Basque origin from Getaria, part of the Crown of Castile when he was born, best known for having completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in the ship "Victoria" on the Magellan expedition to the Spice Islands. He received recognition for his achievement by Charles I of Spain with a coat of arms bearing a globe and the Latin motto "Primus circumdedisti me" (You were the first to circumnavigate me).


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Despite his achievements, information on Elcano is scarce and he is the subject of great historiographical controversy, due to the scarcity of original sources which illuminate his private life and personalty. Even in Spain, for example, the first biographies about him were written in the second half of the 19th century, after three centuries of neglect by historians.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Following his success, the king entrusted him with another large expedition to the Spice Islands, headed by the nobleman García Jofre de Loaisa, which was not completed. Elcano died in the Pacific Ocean during this venture.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano's name has been written in different ways by historians. Although today in the Basque language the form "Elkano" is used, his signature seems to read Delcano, or possibly Del Cano, although it is difficult to be sure: Enrique Santamaría shows that his lack of dexterity when signing his name leads him to leave gaps between the letters, so sometimes he signed "del ca no". In Spanish historiography it most commonly has been interpreted as "Del Cano" (or de Cano), but also as simply "Cano".


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: However, near Getaria (today between Zarautz and Aia) is the neighborhood of Elkano, where the surname is "Elkano" or "Elcano". For this reason "Elcano" has been used as a surname in Spanish and "Elkano" in Basque to indicate that it was from the Elkano lineage.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Mitxelena, in his book "Apellidos vascos", interprets the surname Elkano from Basque. Between the suffixes "-ano" and "-no", he provides arguments for the latter, the diminutive suffix. He proposes that the first part of the surname is "elge". Mitxelena reconstructs the previous form of this "elge", and argues that the surname Elkano developed from the association of these two morphemes, and that it is also a toponym . It exists in different areas of the Basque Country as a minor place name, but also as the name of a village in Navarre.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Juan Sebastián Elcano's mother was Catalina del Puerto or Catalina Portu, and his father was Domingo Sebastián Elcano. The Portu or Puerto were a powerful family of clergy and scribes. Elcano's grandmother, Catalina's mother, was Domenja Olazabal. Formerly it was believed that she belonged to a noble family of the Tolosa area. It is known that Catalina, who was alive at the time of Elcano's death, asked the king upon her arrival in Getaria 10 years later for the pension that had been promised to Elcano, legally due her according to his will.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Domingo Sebastián Elcano and Catalina Portu had eight children, their first son being born in 1481, and Juan Sebastián being the fourth born son. Next came Domingo Elcano, who was given the name of his father and became a priest in Getaria. The four other sons in the family were Martín Pérez, Antón Martín, Juan Martín, and Ochoa Martín. Martín Pérez, Antón Martín and Ochoa Martín were also mariners, and sailed with Juan Sebastián Elcano in the second expedition to the Moluccas. The daughters, i.e., Juan Sebastián's sisters, were Sebastiana de Elcano and Inés de Elcano. Apparently Elcano also had a half-sister, María, Domingo's illegitimate daughter.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano had two children: a son, Domingo Elcano, with María Hernández de Hernialde in Getaria, and a daughter, María, with a woman called María Bidaurreta in Valladolid. In his will, he bequeathed 100 ducats to his son's mother, María Hernández de Hernialde. To his daughter he left 40 ducats, conditional on her coming to live in Getaria before she was 4 years old.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: A number of historians have said that the Elcanos were a family of maritime transporters who operated in the Mediterranean. Their ownership of a vessel is suggested by the amount of taxes the family paid the Crown in 1500.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Some 19th century sources say that the Elcano family belonged to the nobility, but this is questionable. Elcano asked the king for the right to bear arms, a privilege of the nobles, and for his brothers to accompany him on his next expedition, indicating that the Elcano brothers, on their father's side at least, were neither nobles nor hidalgos, and that the Portus, on their mother's side, were probably not nobles either. However, the Olazabal family on his grandmother's side may have been hidalgos, but since nobility was not inherited in the matrilineal line, the Portus, through Catalina the daughter of Domenja, would not be hidalgos nor would be the Elcanos, the grandchildren of Domenja.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Fernandez de Navarrete states that, in addition to being a fisherman and a mariner, Elcano acted as a smuggler on board a French ship, but no original sources are given to confirm this. On the other hand, some biographies point out that the Elcano family experienced economic hardship because Elcano's father died young and his mother had to support eight siblings, but this assertion is unfounded.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: As attested in documentation, in 1500, when Elcano was about 14 years old, a large tax was levied in Getaria, with his father Domingo Elcano appearing in the thirteenth position on the tax rolls, having paid 23½ maravedís. It seems, therefore, that they were quite solvent, since they are named among the richest families of the town. Additionally, the royal document later granting him a pardon states that when Elcano was young and acting as a merchant in the Mediterranean, he was the owner of a 200-ton vessel. This would also indicate that his family had been financially solvent.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano got rich from the circumnavigation voyage, earning 613,250 maravedis. This was an immense fortune, an amount equivalent to the salary of a sea pilot for 20 years, as compared to the 23½ maravedis paid by his father in municipal taxes. Of that fortune, 104,526 maravedis was his shipmaster's and captain's wage, while the rest was earned by selling the cloves imported from the Moluccas.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The date of Elcano's birth is unknown, but it can be inferred with a fair amount of certainty that his year of birth was 1486 or 1487. Spanish historiographers have written that he was 42 years old when he sailed with Magellan in 1518, which would place his birth year in 1476. However, before setting sail Elcano himself had confirmed that he was "approximately" 32 years old, as recorded in a document of August 1519; therefore, it is reasonable to believe that he was born in 1486 or 1487.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: There is little doubt about Elcano's place of birth because in his will, drawn by Elcano himself, he mentions that his birthplace is Getaria. It is usually said that he was born in the house located in San Roque Street in the municipality of Getaria, today called the "Birthplace of Juan Sebastián Elcano". There is a plaque commemorating the event next to the house. Even if he was born there, the house did not belong to the Elcano family, but to his maternal grandfather's family, the Portus.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: In the chronicles of the time, Elcano is also presented as a "Getarian". In 1601, the chronicler Juan de Mariana, after writing that Elcano was from Getaria, adds: "from Biscay by nationality or Guipuscoan". At that time the Basques were called 'Vizcaínos' or 'Biscayans'. It has been deduced from indirect information that the Basque language was his mother tongue, but it is unequivocable that he also communicated in Spanish, as can be seen in the letters he wrote to the king, and in the interrogations he underwent in Seville and in Valladolid. It appears that he could read Latin as well, because the two books referred to in his will were written in that language.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Little is known about Elcano's youth. As a young man he owned a large ship and sailed in the Mediterranean. He sold the ship to the Savoyards to resolve legal problems he had incurred because the king had not paid him a salary for 'services rendered' on the kings's orders. It is often repeated, for example, that in 1509 he participated in the conquest of Oran, in the Mediterranean, under the direction of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, commanding his own his two-hundred-ton ship. However, in the register of ships participating in the conquest of Oran, no captain Elcano, or anything similar, is recorded. According to Spanish historiography, Elcano participated with his ship in the Italian wars under the leadership of Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova, known as The Great Captain ("El Gran Capitán") (1495-1504). This is also doubtful because there are no primary sources to prove it, and, above all because Elcano was then 8 years old (17 according to the Spanish historiography), and it is impossible that an 8-year-old boy was already a ship owner or fought in the war.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The certificate of pardon that the king issued to Elcano has been preserved. It mentions that he acted in the service of the king "in the Levante and Africa", but these actions are not further specified. It also states that since the king did not pay him the promised salaries, he had been forced to sell his ship to the House of Savoy. Presumably when he had asked for money from the merchants of Savoy he had to offer them the ship as a guarantee. Therefore, in the case of his participating in a military campaign in the Mediterranean 'in the service of the king', perhaps the events of the catastrophe of Gelves (1510) was a factor, since that military defeat would explain Elcano's debt. Forced to pay for the ship and the crew's wages, but with no war prizes, this could have been the cause of his getting into debt. At the age of twenty-three, unable to pay off his financial obligation and still on board the ship in Italy, he had to hand it over to the Savoyards to satisfy the debt. Another hypothesis is that Elcano performed the 'royal services' in the autumn of 1516, during the battle to take Algiers, also a military defeat, and that he then had to relinquish his ship.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: It is known that in the summer of 1515 Elcano joined the local militia. The Royal Corregidor asked 500 Gipuzkoans to go to Hondarribia and San Sebastian to face the threat of the French. Elcano went there, along with 11 compatriots, charging 30 maravedís per day. It would appear that if he had to enroll in the local militia in 1515 and he did not own a ship at the time, his engaging in the battle to take Algiers is unlikely. Being in his twenties during the 1510s, it is unusual that Elcano already owned a ship of 200 tons, and for such a young man to have this responsibility, but it is clear that Elcano was a precocious sailor who rose very quickly as a professional mariner. Nonetheless he committed a serious infraction by selling his ship to the Savoyards, an illegal action at a time when wars were fought with ships. This infringement would cause him numerous problems in the following years.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: After returning from the Mediterranean campaign, as he had legal problems it is likely that he remained in the Mediterranean, in Catalonia or in the Valencian Country, or perhaps also in Alicante. (In his will he left 24 ducats to the Alicante church of Santa Veronica.) However, at the end of June 1517 he appeared again in Getaria, as is known since he signed as a witness to the debt letter of a compatriot. It is possible his son with the young Getarian María Hernández Hernialde was conceived at that time, between 1517 and 1518, although they were not married, probably because Elcano did not have a stable residence. At the end of 1518 Elcano left Getaria and traveled to Seville to join Magellan's expedition. However, after returning from the expedition, at the age of 35 or 36, the king would forgive him that legal debt on February 13, 1523, and he was able to stabilize his situation in Valladolid.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The Magellan-Elcano expedition (1519 - 1522), which completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth, started with 5 ships ("Trinidad", "San Antonio", "Concepción", "Victoria" and "Santiago") along with 234 crewmen (some sources raise the number of sailors to 247.) Although Elcano had departed Spain aboard the "Concepción", the return voyage from the Moluccas to Seville was made by the single surviving ship, "Victoria", captained by Elcano. Having sailed under extreme conditions, only 21 people arrived in Seville, the 18 Europeans and 3 Moluccans.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: To complete the round-the-world voyage, they had to sail After three years of rough passages, most of the sailors had died. A few made it back alive, but 147 men lost their lives, three-fifths of those who had set sail from Seville. This figure is a reflection of the number of unforeseen events, difficulties and vicissitudes they encountered during the voyage. Fifty-five of those who sailed on the return voyage were deserters coming from South America on the first part of the voyage aboard the "San Antonio". They had not circumnavigated the world because they decided to retreat to the Strait of Magellan. Others who returned would spend some time in Asia or Cape Verde, although they later managed to get to Europe; thus they also could claim, once they disembarked in Spain, that they had sailed around the world. In other words, in addition to the 17 sailors who arrived in Seville along with Elcano, more sailors would sail around the world, albeit later, and not in the same vessels.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: In addition to Elcano, the expedition included 34 other Basques, the largest representation after the Andalusians, along with 28 Portuguese, 19 Genoese and 21 Castilians. Nine of the Basques were with Elcano aboard the "Concepción" – Elcano and Juan de Acurio, Antonio Bermejo's boatswain, wanted trustworthy people around them.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano participated in a fierce mutiny against Ferdinand Magellan before the convoy discovered the Strait of Magellan, the passage between mainland South America and Tierra del Fuego. His life was spared by Magellan and after five months of hard labour in chains he was made captain of the galleon. "Santiago" was later destroyed in a storm. The fleet sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern coast of Brazil and into what is now Puerto San Julián in Argentina. Several months later they discovered a passage now known as the Strait of Magellan located in the southern tip of South America and sailed through the strait. The crew of "San Antonio" mutinied and returned to Spain. On 28 November 1520, three ships set sail for the Pacific Ocean and about 19 men died before they reached Guam on 6 March 1521. Conflicts with the nearby island of Rota prevented Magellan and Elcano from resupplying their ships with food and water. They eventually gathered enough supplies and continued their journey to the Philippines and remained there for several weeks. Close relationships developed between the islanders and the Spaniards, who began to evangelize and convert the Cebuano tribes to Christianity; they also became involved in tribal warfare between rival Filipino groups on Mactan Island.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: On 27 April 1521, Magellan was killed and the Spaniards defeated by natives in the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. The surviving members of the expedition could not decide who should succeed Magellan. The men finally chose a joint command with the leadership divided between Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão. Within four days these two were also dead, killed after being betrayed by the host at a feast given by Rajah Humabon. The mission was now teetering on the edge of disaster, and João Lopes de Carvalho took command of the fleet, leading it on a meandering journey through the Philippine archipelago.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: During the six-month listless journey after Magellan died, and before reaching the Moluccas, Elcano's stature grew as the men became disillusioned with the weak leadership of Carvalho. The two ships, "Victoria" and "Trinidad", finally reached their destination, the Moluccas, on 6 November. The men rested and reprovisioned the ships in this haven, then filled their holds with the precious cargo of cloves and nutmeg. On 18 December, the ships were ready to leave, but "Trinidad" sprang a leak, and could not be repaired. Carvalho stayed with the ship along with 52 others hoping to return later.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: "Victoria", commanded by Elcano along with 17 other European survivors of the 240-man expedition and 4 survivors out of 13 of the Timorese men, continued its westward voyage to Spain traversing the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. They reached Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 6 September 1522.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian scholar, was a crew member of the Magellan and Elcano expedition, and later wrote several documents concerning its events. According to Pigafetta the voyage covered 14,460 leagues – about .


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Ferdinand Magellan was the expedition leader, its captain-general ("capitán-general"). Being Portuguese, he had traveled in his youth through South Asia with the Portuguese army, getting to know those islands, finding safe harbors and places to stay and establishing his mastery of the maritime routes for trade. As a result of those experiences, Magellan knew the exact location of the Moluccas islands, then called the "Spice Islands", or at least he made King Charles V believe this. He claimed, wrongly, that they were in the Castilian hemisphere, following the Treaty of Tordesillas. He was appointed captain-general because he had this information, and this is also the reason he was responsible for planning the expedition's route to the East Indies. The relationship between Magellan and Elcano quickly became strained, precisely because Magellan did not want to show anyone the route and did not want to reveal exactly where the Moluccas were. Magellan condemned Elcano in San Julian (Patagonia) for his participation in the San Julian revolt.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano confessed his part in the mutinies against Magellan during his interrogation at Valladolid after the circumnavigation, adding that he had not written anything while Magellan was alive because he feared him. Magellan had been killed in the Philippines on April 27, 1521 by warriors from the island of Mactan.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Although the objective set by the king was to open the route to the Spice Islands, when they reached Asia, Magellan began to pursue his personal objectives as a captain. The king had promised to make him governor of those islands in the Castilian hemisphere and that he should enjoy commercial rights to the trade of the two main islands. This is probably why the expedition did not sail directly to the Moluccas islands to acquire spices, but further north. They also traveled widely in the region, getting involved in the internal conflicts of the resident peoples of the various islands.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: After Magellan's death, the Portuguese Duarte Barbosa, a relative of Magellan, was appointed captain-general, but he was also killed in Cebu together with Captain João Serrão of the "Trinidad", in an ambush at a dinner organized by the Hindu leader of the island, the rajah called Humabon. In that ambush on May 1 in Mactan, about 35 sailors lost their lives. In this situation, on May 2, 1521, it was decided to burn the ship "Concepción" because there were not enough sailors, only 116 or 117, to crew three ships. Thus the expedition was reduced from five to two vessels.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Now the expedition had only two vessels to return to Seville, "Victoria" and "Trinidad". However, Elcano was not immediately appointed captain. First another Portuguese, Juan Lopez de Carvalho, was appointed in May 1521. Disagreeing with Carvalho's manner of command, the sailors dismissed Carvalho and elected Elcano as captain of the ship on September 17, 1521. Clarifying what happened between May and September is complicated because there are several versions of the events. How and why the unusual decision was made to remove Carvalho and place Elcano in command has not yet been determined, but it is certain that Elcano was chosen as captain by the crew to replace Carvalho.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: After arriving in the Moluccas and loading the cargo of cloves, once in South Asia Captain Elcano changed his original plan. He proposed to continue westward returning to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, without turning back or rounding Cape Horn in South America. This change of plans would culminate with the first round-the-world voyage.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The expedition finally reached Tidore in the Molucca Islands, in what is now Indonesia. There they found the precious spice they were looking for, i.e., cloves. They made an agreement with the local rajah, whom they called the "Almansur" of Tidore Island, and who brought them tons of cloves. (The "Victoria" returned to Seville with 27 tons of cloves.) As there were not so many cloves on Tidore Island, the rajah brought some from the neighboring islands as well. In the meantime, the "Trinidad" was disabled. Having heard of the approach of the Portuguese, and with the danger of tarrying, they decided to return alone on the "Victoria", with Elcano as captain. They had specific orders from the Crown to return by the route they had gone, but they did not comply with them, and took the westward course with the aim of sailing around the world. Elcano proposed to do this because, as he wrote, "They were going to do what could be narrated", indicating that he was aware of the historical import of their voyage, as is clear in the letter he wrote to the newly enthroned king:


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The expedition planned to sail from Timor to Seville, a distance of kilometers, without a stopover. They did not succeed, because after sailing over , the sailors decided by vote to stay in Cape Verde, as their situation was impossible. To avoid meeting the Portuguese on the way, they crossed the equator to the southern hemisphere, and avoided India. Moreover, by going so far south, they also managed to avoid the opposing monsoon winds blowing from Africa that time of year. They sailed very close to Australia, about . If instead of sailing southwest they had sailed south in a straight line, they would have reached Australia in two or three days of sailing. As the days went by, they began to run out of provisions. When they had only rice cooked in seawater left to eat, scurvy began to make the sailors seriously ill. Under these circumstances, the idea of making landfall in Mozambique spread on the ship. It was dangerous to land there, however, where the Portuguese might capture them. Elcano consulted the crew, who decided by vote to continue sailing, without stopping in Mozambique.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Rounding the perilous Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa was very difficult for them. The Portuguese called it 'the cape of storms'. At first they headed south to take advantage of the wind, but the ship could not continue because of bad weather, usual in those parts. For nine weeks they stayed there, freezing, with their sails lowered. At last Elcano made the sailors a dangerous proposition: to round the cape close to the coast. On the one hand there was the danger that the storms would drive them into the shore, and on the other, if they avoided that fate, that they might encounter the Portuguese on the eastern side of the cape. They pressed on, sailing southward in the Indian Ocean close to the African coast, and at last managed to round the cape and head northward off the continent's western coast.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The expedition could not sail directly to Seville because the situation on board was unsustainable, and they needed to land somewhere. In desperation, and in search of food, they first reconnoitered the African coast off what is now Guinea Bissau and Senegal, but could not find a suitable place to land. They decided by vote to call at Cape Verde where they could obtain food and repair the ship, although the Portuguese were in charge in Cape Verde. This was the final leg of the voyage, and Elcano's men had not made landfall for months, suffering two or three deaths a week. Seawater was entering the vessel's wooden hull, due to naval shipworms tunneling into and damaging it, and as the crew were weak from hunger, they did not have the strength to pump the water out of the bilges, and there were fewer and fewer of them left alive.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: To make matters worse, they had no money and no goods except cloves to exchange for provisions. Acknowledging that they had cloves would reveal that the expedition was returning from Asia rather than the Americas, and the Portuguese would come out against them. By unknown means they were able to pay for the first two loads of food, but they used part of their cargo of cloves to pay for the third and thus revealed their identity to the Portuguese. (This assumption has been dismissed by scholars like Enrique Santamaría, who argues that such "errors" were impossible). Consequently, they were pursued by the Portuguese and forced to flee, leaving 13 sailors prisoners of the Portuguese in Cape Verde.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: It is not entirely clear whether their third risky purchase at Cape Verde was to obtain provisons or slaves. Most of the original accounts, including Elcano's, speak only of food, but Bustamante, the doctor-barber on board, says that they went down to look for slaves because of the imperative need for labor to pump out the water filling the bilges. This is a possibility, as the African slave trade was common and legal in Portugal.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The ship didn't make the passage from Cape Verde to Seville in a straight line because the wind was driving them off course. They turned around by 'Volta do mar largo', taking a wide course to the west, sailing almost as far northward as Galicia and from there southward to return to Seville. They landed at Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522, and two days later, they entered Seville on September 8, after almost three years of voyaging. Of the 234 (or 247) sailors who set sail, only 18 arrived.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: As soon as the ship "Victoria" arrived in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Elcano began writing a 700-word letter addressed to Charles V, in which he never mentions himself, emphasising that the expedition had achieved its goal of bringing back the desired spices, had "brought peace" to those islands, and had obtained the friendship of their kings and lords, attested by their signatures on documents. He went on to highlight the extreme hardships undergone during the expedition. Elcano did not forget the members of the crew captured in Cabo Verde by the Portuguese, begging the king to initiate all necessary actions leading to their release. He ends the letter with commentary about their discoveries, the roundness of the world, setting sail to the west and coming back from the east.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Once the voyage was over, upon arriving in Seville, Elcano and a few selected men took the road to Valladolid, which at the time was the residence of Charles V and his court. The king wanted Elcano to personally tell him about the expedition. In his letter of invitation, the king offered him horses to make the trip, although the road from Seville to Valladolid was traveled more often by carriage than on horseback. The invitation was intended only for Elcano and two others, 'Those who have better sense', but Elcano brought more crew members with him. The little group arrived in Valladolid, including the three sailors from the Moluccas who wanted to meet the king.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: King Charles V soon received Elcano, at the latest one month after the circumnavigation. Elcano appeared at the court in Valladolid, and spoke in the presence of the king, giving his account of the voyage, possibly in three conversations: first with the king, perhaps in private; then with the court experts, to clarify technical and financial matters and also to describe the events of the voyage, including the mutiny and deaths that occurred; and finally, with a group of humanist learned men more interested in the various cultures that the expedition encountered. It is not known exactly how these meetings went. He would spend three years in Valladolid, near the Court. There he joined María Bidaurreta (in some sources De Vida Urreta) and had another daughter.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Charles V granted Elcano an augmentation of his coat of arms featuring a world globe with the words "Primus circumdedisti me" (Latin: "You first encircled me"). However, this augmentation has been contested, as Elcano was not previously a member of the nobility. Elcano claimed three gifts from the king as a reward for his achievement, namely an annual pension of 500 ducats which he never received, two armed men to escort him and an official statement pardoning him for the sale of his ship to the Savoyard bankers. Following Elcano's death and after lengthy lawsuits, his mother Catalina del Puerto never managed to obtain any of his pension. By 1567, after she too had died, Elcano's heirs and other relatives continued to demand that the pension be honored. His male heirs were given the hereditary title of Marquis of Buglas, i.e., Negros Island in the Philippines. In the modern era, the country with the most people surnamed "Elcano" is currently the Philippines.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The king of Portugal, John III, filed a piracy complaint against Elcano for theft of the cargo of cloves from the Moluccas, as they were part of his domains, and for his escape from Cape Verde with the precious cargo. He petitioned the King of Castile to return the cloves and to arrest and punish Elcano. King Charles V disregarded the request and protected Elcano.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Portugal and Castile both claimed the Moluccas Islands. The need to revise the Treaty of Tordesillas was not easy to resolve. Without knowing the exact size of the world, it was difficult to place those islands in a certain area. The key was to fix the location of the anti-meridian relative to the meridian established in the Treaty of Tordesillas, the two meridians forming a great circle that divides the earth into two hemispheres, to determine on which side of the antimeridian the Moluccas Islands were located. Meetings to resolve the matter were held in 1524 in the towns of Elvas and Badajoz along the border between Spain and Portugal. Five of the six Basques who circumnavigated the world participated in these assemblies.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: To accurately establish this antimeridian, each of the Crowns assembled the best cosmographers of the time. Each delegation appointed three astronomers or cartographers, three sea pilots and three mathematicians. The Spanish delegation also appointed Fernando Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, with the objective of determining the location of the Moluccas. The negotiating team included Sebastian Cabot (Sebastián Caboto), Juan Vespucio, Diogo Ribeiro, Estêvão Gomezs, Simón Alcazaba and Diego López de Sigueiro.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: In the Badajoz-Elvas assemblies, the most authoritative voice of the Castilian delegation was Elcano himself, who devoted himself to his work as a cosmographer. He brought to these meetings a sphere of the world he made himself, on which some accounts say he had marked the trajectory of the round-the-world voyage. These meetings were unsuccessful because the attendant parties were unable to agree on the exact location of the Moluccas Islands, as it could not be deduced from the ships' logs, and in any case the Portuguese did not recognize Elcano's authority. It is not known exactly why, but suddenly Elcano and the pilot Estêvão Gomes were absent from those meetings on March 15, 1524. Shortly thereafter, on May 20, 1524, the king pronounced his support of Elcano, as it was said that there were those who wanted to harm him (the royal charter speaks of "wounded, dead or crippled"), and three days later, on May 23, 1524, the assembly met again in Badajoz, but without Elcano. The conjecture is that he was threatened by the Portuguese in the case of the alleged piracy in the Moluccas. By October 1524 Elcano was in the Basque Country preparing for a second expedition to the Moluccas. Two years later, in 1529, John III of Portugal and Charles V of Castile signed the Treaty of Zaragoza, Castile recognizing the Moluccas as being on the Portuguese side of the antimeridian of the line of demarcation previously specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: In 1525, Elcano was back at sea as a member of the Loaísa expedition to the Moluccas with García Jofre de Loaísa, who had been appointed by Charles V as captain-general of a fleet composed of seven ships. Loaísa was in command of the carrack (Spanish: "nao") "Santa María de la Victoria", the fleet's flagship, while Elcano was named pilot-major of the expedition, in command of "Sancti Spiritus", with his brother Martín Pérez serving as its pilot. They were sent by Charles V to claim the Indies in his name, a venture that was irksome to Portugal.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The expedition, financed by German international banking and merchant families, the Fuggers and the Welsers, sailed from A Coruña in July 1525. It consisted of four carracks, two caravels and a patache, with 450 sailors to crew them. Its purpose was securing a military foothold in the Maluccas, and forming alliances with the native rulers to gain control of the local spice trade with the establishment of a base for the Spanish Crown's mercantile and colonial agents.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Although Elcano had more experience, the king chose García Jofre de Loaísa as commander of the expedition because he was a nobleman, his status in line with the royal objective of establishing a Castilian authority in the Moluccas. Elcano was accompanied by his brothers Martín Pérez, Ochoa Martín and Antón Martín, his nephew Esteban Mutio, and his brother-in-law Santiago de Guevara, captain of "Santiago".


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano's influence was evident in the preparations for the expedition. Of the seven ships, four had been built in Basque territory and the number of natives of the Gipuzkoan coast in the crew had increased considerably, including those in positions of responsibility, compared to the first expedition. Many of them were close to Elcano.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The expedition faced numerous misfortunes. Before reaching the strait, two vessels were lost because they couldn't find its entrance. The "Sancti Spiritus", piloted by Elcano, ran aground in a storm and was abandoned, with its men being distributed among the other ships, and the "San Gabriel" deserted the expedition, returning to Castile after sailing up the Brazilian coast. The remaining ships completed their passage through the Strait of Magellan on 26 May 1526, and set out for the Pacific crossing. A storm scattered the ships on June 2 and only one, "Victoria", remained. Another of the ships ended up in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The ship continued to the Moluccas in poor condition, and the crew suffered the ravages of scurvy. The accountant Alonso de Tejada, the pilot Antonio Bermejo and thirty-two other crew members died. Finally, General Loaisa himself died on 30 July. Elcano then took command of the navigation, and was named captain-general, a position he had been promised by the king from the beginning. After a short time he died of scurvy, probably on 6 August 1526. All his relatives who accompanied him also died, except, perhaps, his brother Ochoa Martín, who may have been aboard the ship that landed at Zihuatanejo. In one of the documents that appeared later in Laurgain, dated January 29, 1529, the king calls "Johan Ochoa Martínez del Cano" to go on the expedition of Simón de Alcazaba to the Moluccas. If this referred to Elcano's brother, then he was still alive in 1529. Before dying, Juan Sebastián had made a will – one of those signing as a witness was Andrés de Urdaneta.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: On August 7, Elcano's body was wrapped in a shroud and tied to a board with ropes. Afterwards, it was placed on the deck of the ship while the surviving men recited the "Lord's Prayer" and the "Ave Maria" (Hail Mary). When they finished, a weight was tied to the shroud, and Alonso de Salazar, the new captain general of the Army, nodded his head. The four sailors tilted the plank over the gunwale until the weight of the corpse caused it to drop into the sea.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Two letters addressed to King Charles V and a will are the only documents in Elcano's own handwriting known to have survived to the present day. In the interrogations at Seville before the expedition and at Valladolid after its completion, the answers given by Elcano were also recorded in writing and have also survived. Elcano's voice can be heard in them.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: While Magellan was alive Elcano wrote nothing because he feared his wrath, he addressed this point in the Valladolid interrogations. After Magellan's death, however, following Elcano's appointment as captain, he began to write down (as he himself said in the Valladolid investigation) what had happened and what he had seen. This chronicle of the first world circumnavigation, written by his own hand, has been lost. Along with Elcano's account, the other important written chronicles of the voyage, including Magellan's or Pigaffeta's originals, are also lost. In the case of Magellan and Elcano a hypothesis has been proposed that both their writings could be translated in the Latin chronicle of the royal secretary Maximilianus Transilvanus ,and that the main passages of the chronicle written by Elcano have survived in the contemporary chronicles rewritten by Maximiliano Transilvano and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The first letter was written in Sanlúcar de Barrameda to let the king know that he has returned from his circumnavigation. The text is precise and correct, as merchants, unlike diplomats, usually write. He promises the king documents, letters of submission from the monarchs of the remote island and samples of spices to account for the success of the voyage. He also brings with him five parrots, which were appreciated at the Court. He explains in 10 lines what happened up to the death of Magellan and, subsequently, what happened in his charge in the other 40-45. It is at that point that he asks the king to make an effort to free the 13 who have been detained in Cape Verde. He asks for a financial reward from Charles V, but mentions that the feat was accomplished by collective decision.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The purpose of the second letter was to ask for bonuses. Approximately 40 days after returning from the voyage around the world, Elcano arrived at the Court of Valladolid where the king received his request to name him captain-general. In it he also asked the king for the commercial rights of trade in the Moluccas or the habit of the Order of Santiago, which were entrusted by the king to Magellan. The king's secretary (Francisco de los Cobos) denied all of these requests. Apparently he was not accorded respect at the Court of Castile, and they did not want to give Elcano the orders that had been promised to Magellan. Santamaría argues that this animadversion was caused by Elcano's lack of noble status. It took him months to obtain the other three bonuses he had been promised – a pension, a pardon and the right to an armed guard – probably as a result of the rapprochement with the Court.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The will is also a source of information about Elcano's personal life. In addition to citing all his claimed assets in great detail, it speaks of his family. It shows that although he never married, he had sexual relationships with at least two women, both of them Basque or of Basque origin, and each of whom bore his child. His son Domingo was born before the world circumnavigation and his daughter María afterwards.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The will was drawn up on July 26, 1526 and opened by the president of the Council of the Indies upon his arrival in Seville, ten years after it was made. All seven witnesses to the will were Basques, which is surprising, given the situation and the location in the middle of the Pacific, a clear indication of trust and solidarity among them. The witnesses were Martín García Karkizano, Andrés Gorostiaga, Hernando Gebara, Andrés Urdaneta, Juanes Zabala, Martín Uriarte and Andrés Aletxe.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: In his will Elcano left money to churches such as San Salvador de Getaria, Itziar, Sasiola (Deba), Our Lady of Arantzazu, San Pelayo in Zarautz and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Hondarribia. However, he stipulated that these bequests should be paid out of the money owed him by the king according to the terms of their agreement, funds which he never received. This leaving of money to the church only if he were paid by the King has been used by Santamaría to dismiss the idea of Elcano being a very religious man.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: He also left portions of those funds to his heirs, but if they died, as happened, his mother would receive the benefit of his properties. He treated the four of them generously in the distribution of goods: one hundred ducats of gold to Domingo's mother (37,500 maravedís), and another 40 ducats (15,000 maravedís) to the daughter, if she married, as a dowry. On the other hand, he requested that his daughter be taken from Valladolid to Getaria when she turned 4 years old, because Getaria was closer to his heart than the Court of Valladolid.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Thanks to the will, it is known that Elcano owned two books written in Latin, indicating that he knew how to read that language. Both books refer to astronomy, one being the "Almanac" of Regiomontanus, which allowed navigators to determine longitude at sea with observations of the moon. These two books were left to Andres San Martin, his pilot cosmographer who disappeared on the circumnavigation, if he should be found alive. This suggests that in the second expedition Elcano was still hoping to find a companion lost in the first expedition.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: In 1533, seven years after Elcano's death, his mother was still in court with the royal treasury seeking the salaries corresponding to the rank of captain due to her son and the other payments he never received, and his pension of 500 ducats per year. The will also shows that Elcano did not own slaves, otherwise he would have had to cite them.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: The humanist Maximilianus Transylvanus was present at the royal court, listening to Elcano. From what he heard he wrote his own chronicle of the voyage, in the form of a letter, which he sent to his patron, Matteo Lang von Wellenburg. The book was printed in Cologne in January 1523 and in November of that year another printing was made in Rome by Gian Matteo Giberti, assistant to Pope Clement VII. Giovanni Battista Ramusio years later assembled a collection of travels and introduced the text of Transilvanus. The text was written in Latin, for political purposes and according to the tastes of Chancellor Gattinara. It is possible that this text by Transilvano is a compilation of collected testimonies: the account of Magellan's part of the voyage is very different from that of Elcano's part, as if they had two different authors. Another chronicler of the time who read these two texts, Fernandez de Oviedo, alluded to the parity between the texts of Elcano and Transilvano: "It is almost him", he wrote.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: If the second part of the Transylvanus text is a direct translation of Elcano's report, he appears as an exponent of the humanist and utopian intellectual movements then current in Europe, and the text, which says that the societies of the Moluccas were peaceful, treated their neighbors well and were hospitable to foreigners can be seen as one of the first explications of the myth of the noble savage and a critique of the corruption of European civilization:


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Basque philosopher Ekai Txapartegi defends the proposition that Transilvanus's text was written by Elcano, asserting that its description of the island of Borneo as a utopia and its depiction of the customs of the inhabitants reveals the humanist aspect of his political thought, as well as his opposition to the expansionist ambitions of empire and warlike kings, and the imposition of the Christian faith on peaceful pagan societies. Not much is said in the text about the events that transpired when the expedition was in Borneo, only that they talked to the local king, made some exchanges and moved on. What they were doing there is not explained in the passage, although it is known that Borneo was the scene of conflict for the travelers, indicating that the writer is speaking more of his personal utopian vision than of a literal description of Borneo.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Elcano's achievement has been eclipsed in traditional historiography by that of Magellan, who planned and led the famous expedition until he died before it reached the Spice Islands. More recently, Portugal's solo candidacy to UNESCO to get Magellan's expedition and the resulting circumnavigation (without mentioning Elcano) recognised as a Portuguese Intangible World Heritage has provoked a major controversy with Spain, thereafter seemingly settled by the submission by said countries of a new joint application to honour the circumnavigation route. According to the Basque historian Xabier Alberdi Lonbide, Elcano was relegated to a secondary role in French and Spanish historiography of the 19th century and there remains a minor figure. Lonbide writes that the maritime heritage of the Basque Country generally has been consigned to oblivion in British, French, and Spanish historiography, and that Basque historiography has not managed to overcome this situation, although in the Basque Country Elcano is regarded as the most universal representative of Basque culture, and he has greater stature.


title: Juan Sebastián Elcano

text: Throughout the world Elcano has been a marginal character because he was almost forgotten for three centuries. In the first accounts of the voyage, the cold reception that the successful circumnavigation of the world got at the Court of Castile is noticeable; in the long seventeen-page account written by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, for example, Elcano was not mentioned even once. The reason for this neglect is perhaps that those who sailed around the world were not hidalgos, but common sailors, a fact that contravened late medieval social attitudes among the upper classes.