10 Euros Magellan-Elcano Circumnavigation of the Globe

This coin marks the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation, completed in September 1522 when the Victoria limped into Sanlúcar de Barramora with 18 survivors from an original crew of roughly 270. Magellan himself never finished the voyage — killed in the Philippines at the Battle of Mactan in April 1521 — leaving Juan Sebastián Elcano to bring the expedition home.

Malta's connection to the story is oblique at best, though the island sits squarely along the Mediterranean routes that made Iberian spice-trade ambitions financially urgent in the first place. The Victoria returned carrying enough cloves to turn a profit despite the catastrophic human cost.