English naval explorer, led the third expedition to circumnavigate the globe (died 1592)

Thomas Cavendish

Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first to deliberately attempt to emulate Sir Francis Drake, raiding Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and then returning by circumnavigating the globe. Though Magellan-Elcano, Loaísa, Drake, and Loyola had all preceded him in circumnavigating the globe, Cavendish's own successful voyage, between 1586 and 1588, was the first deliberately planned circumnavigation. It made him rich from captured Spanish gold, silk, and treasure from the Pacific and the Philippines, with his richest prize being the 600-ton Manila galleon Santa Ana. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England after his return.