Operation Sandblast: The First Submarine Circumnavigation

In the early 16th century, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan embarked on a historic expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. After Magellan’s death in the Philippines, Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the rest of the journey back to Spain to make the first circumnavigation of the globe. Four hundred years later, this novel voyage would inspire another landmark exercise in circumnavigation. Except, this one would be conducted in a nuclear-powered submarine and the voyage would be conducted wholly underwater.