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Sir Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – January 28, 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, naval hero, politician, and civil engineer of the Elizabethan period. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, from 1577 to 1580. In 1579, he landed in northern California, or possibly further north in Oregon or the Pacific Northwest (the exact location is still disputed by historians) and claimed the land as "Nova Albion" for the English Crown. Maps made soon after would have "Nova Albion" written above the entire northern frontier of New Spain.

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Francis_drake"