Drake's Circumnavigation

The 1577 to 1580 voyage by Francis Drake, the first English circumnavigation of the globe and the second after Magellan’s expedition. Drake left Plymouth in December 1577 with five ships; he renamed his flagship the Golden Hind off South America, raided Spanish Pacific ports and shipping, claimed Nova Albion on the California coast, and crossed the Pacific and Indian Oceans to return to Plymouth on 26 September 1580. Elizabeth I knighted him aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford in 1581; the plundered treasure roughly repaid England’s national debt.