At dawn on 27 April 1521, Magellan invaded Mactan Island with 60 armed men and 1,000 Cebuano warriors, but had great difficulty landing his men on the rocky shore. Magellan’s expedition got involved in the political rivalries between the Cebuano natives and took part in a battle against Lapu-Lapu, chieftain of Mactan island and a mortal enemy of Datu Zula. Magellan sought alliances among the natives beginning with Datu Zula, the chieftain of Sugbu (now Cebu), and took special pride in converting them to Catholicism. On Easter Sunday, 31 March 1521, at Limasawa Island, Southern Leyte (as what is stated in Pigafetta’s Primo Viaggio Intorno El Mondo (First Voyage Around the World), Magellan solemnly planted a cross on the summit of a hill overlooking the sea and claimed possession of the islands he had seen for the king of Spain, naming them Archipelago of Saint Lazarus.
The expedition first sighted the mountains of Samar at dawn on the 16th March 1521, making landfall the following day at the small, uninhabited island of Homonhon at the mouth of the Leyte Gulf. Although there had been at least two other first Europeans in the Philippines, the first European expedition to explore the Philippine archipelago was that led by Ferdinand Magellan, in the service of the king of Spain.
