In 1519, while in the service of Spain, he commanded five vessels on a voyage from Spain to the East Indies by the western route. He reached South America later that year, rounding the continent through the strait which now bears his name and emerging to become the first European to navigate the Pacific. He reached the Philippines in 1521, but soon after was killed in a skirmish on Cebu. The survivors, in the one remaining ship, sailed back to Spain round Africa, thereby completing the first circumnavigation of the globe (1522).