Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, naval officer, and explorer. Drake is most famously known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as captain while leading the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation With his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, he claimed what is now California for the English and inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas,an area that had previously been largely unexplored by Western shipping.
