#35 Sir Francis Drake: Around the World in 1018 Days Part 1
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On September 26, 1580, some fisherman not far from shore in the English Channel saw a small ship, riding low in the water, moving cautiously toward Plymouth Sound. A man aboard the ship hailed the fisherman and asked whether the Queen was alive? The fisherman replied to Sir Francis Drake that she was, but that a plague – influenza, apparently — was raging in Plymouth itself.
1018 days after he had set sail from England, Drake had returned with a hold full of treasure and a trove of important information about the world. Before he could approach Plymouth, however, he had to know whether Elizabeth, who had sent him on a secret mission through the Strait of Magellan to the west coast of North America, was still queen, or whether a successor, who might well have been Catholic and an ally of Spain, now reigned.
This is part 1 of the story of the second circumnavigation of the globe, and the extraordinary things that happened along the way. In today’s episode, Drake discovers a cure for scurvy 180 years before a Scottish doctor in the Royal Navy learned that citrus fruits did the job, and his sailors make the coolest souvenirs in history, at least that we know of. And that’s the very least of it, for Drake sets the stage for the English settlement of North America.
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References for this episode
Samuel Bawlf, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580
John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans
Email: thehistoryoftheamericans@gmail.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 35. |
| 0:11.0 | I am your host, Jack Heneman. |
| 0:12.9 | And we are recording this episode, Sir Francis Drake, around the world in a thousand and eighteen days, part one. |
| 0:25.2 | On August 20th, 2021 in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:31.3 | Support services for this episode were provided by the Cuban Creation cigar bar on Toulouse Street in New Orleans French Quarter. I highly recommend it, if that is your |
| 0:36.3 | sort of thing. And if it is a slow afternoon |
| 0:39.3 | during the week or so each month, I'm in New Orleans, you might run into me there. We have a |
| 0:46.1 | bunch of new listeners, thanks to some very nice Twitter endorsements, including from |
| 0:50.9 | author Nancy Rommelman and myth-informed MKE an organization promoting non-ideological |
| 0:58.2 | discussions of public issues that tend to get ideological. |
| 1:03.5 | Thank you. |
| 1:04.7 | For those of you new to this party, we strive, no doubt imperfectly, to talk about history |
| 1:10.3 | without presentism, which historians |
| 1:13.3 | define as the uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret |
| 1:20.0 | past events in terms of modern values and concepts. Related to that idea, we try really hard |
| 1:27.1 | not to weaponize history in the service of today's politics. |
| 1:32.0 | In episode 25, taking stock, I talk about the perils of doing that in some detail. |
| 1:39.4 | So go over there if you want to hear me rant on that topic. |
| 1:43.7 | The year is now 1580. |
| 1:46.7 | Philip II of Spain has succeeded to the throne of Portugal, |
| 1:51.2 | uniting the Iberian Peninsula and the only two European powers, |
| 1:56.1 | with settlements in the Americas under one crown. |
... |
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