To this day, Francis Drake is known as one of the greatest sailors and ship captains that England ever produced. Yet in his own day—the late 1600s—he was also widely known as a pirate, a term he hated with a passion. Pirates were common criminals, he said, which he was not. Instead, he was a privateer, a fighter who had been directed by Queen Elizabeth I, to attack Spanish vessels and colonies in the Americas. In fact, Drake not only seriously hindered the Spanish, he also made history by becoming only the second sea captain to sail around the globe, an incredible feat in that era. That expedition, along with several of Drake's other colorful adventures, became the stuff of legend. Today, historians sometimes struggle to separate fact from fiction in retelling his exciting deeds.