Other Explorers such as the Spanish sponsored Italian Christopher Columbus intended to engage in trade by traveling on unfamiliar routes west from Europe. The subsequent European discovery of the Americas in 1492 resulted in the Colombian exchange and the world's first pan-oceanic globalization. Spanish Explorer Ferdinand Magellan performed the first known circumnavigation of Earth in 1521. The transfer of goods and diseases across oceans was unprecedented in creating a more connected world. From developments in navigation and trade modern history began.