Olivier van Noort

Olivier van Noort (* 1558 in Utrecht, † February 22, 1627 in Schoonhoven at the Lek ) was the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world.

Biography

Olivier van Noort was born in 1558 ( according to some sources in 1559 ) in Utrecht. In 1598, van Noort received from some of Rotterdam and Amsterdam merchants commissioned to make an expedition to India in southwestern direction. The owners presented him the four ships Eendracht, Mauritius, Frederik Hendrik and De Hoop with a total of 248 man crew available. He left Rotterdam on 2 July, Tierra del Fuego, reached in November 1598 but only sailed the early 1600s, after many problems (so he set his Vice - Admiral, Jacob Claes, after a mutiny on an uninhabited island off ) through the Strait of Magellan, and continued his journey to Asia. He lost three ships go. One was lost in a storm off the coast of Chile, and two more were sunk by Spanish vessels in the Philippines. With his last ship, the Mauritius, succeeded van Noort, to sink the Spanish galleon San Diego in a battle of the Philippines. He returned on August 26, 1601 and only 45 men to Rotterdam back.

This trip is considered the fourth circumnavigation by the expeditions of Magellan, Drake and Cavendish.

Later, he took on the Dutch side or in part to other battles of the Eighty Years' War.