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1. King Charles I King Charles was the king of Spain at the time Magellan arrived. He was only eighteen years old and was the grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had backed Christopher Columbus on his voyage. King Charles was hungry for glory and power. After being elected king of the Romans he was in line to become the Holy Roman Emperor. His only problem was that in order to attain that title, he would have to basically pay large bribes to the electors, who were in Germany. This is why he decided to pursue sending a fleet to the Spice Islands, so that he could get the money. He didn’t even have the money though to fund the fleet, so he got a loan from the House of Fugger, a banking dynasty in Augsburg, Germany, which put him in only further debt. During the two years that the fleet was off on its expedition, Charles was engulfed in political turmoil. After Charles’s grandfather died, who had been the current Holy Roman Emperor, the Empire was electing a new emperor. Charles was competing against Francis I, the king of France, who like King Charles was power hungry. Charles had to borrow even more money from the House of Fugger, because the fleet had not returned yet with the wealth that would allow him to pay the bribes of the German electors. Although he went into greater debt, he was able to pay the bribes and became the Holy Roman Emperor, at the age of twenty one. King Charles made a small fortune of off the cloves that the eighteen surviving men of the Armada de Moluccas brought back, but it all went to waste in the end. Over the next seven years he sent four more fleets in search of the Spice Islands, but all failed. Eventually the House of Fugger stopped funding him, and he was forced to stop the expeditions because Spain was nearly bankrupt. Charles decided to turn to his nemesis, the Portuguese for funding. Because of Charles’s title as Holy Roman Emperor and his influence on the Pope, Portugal agreed to fund him, so that it didn’t look like they were rebelling against the Church. Although Charles funded the fleet that not only reached the Spice Islands but circumnavigated the globe, he was forced to give up any control in terms of the Spice Islands themselves to the Portuguese when they agreed to fund him in the Treaty of Saragrossa. “In matters of empire, everything had its price.” (413) I think that this was my best key term of my freshman year. In this key term I think that I did a good job with stating his general information in a short and straight forward manner, that allowed me to spend most of the writing talking about the role he played in Magellan's circumnavigation of the world. Another thing that I liked about this key term was that I was able to connect many characters together, and how their actions led to certain events in the book, like how Charles nearly went bankrupt, which forced him to go to the Portuguese for help, which led to the Treaty of Saragrossa. Finally I liked how I ended the key term with a powerful quote that showed what Charles was willing to for the potential wealth and power he could attain from reaching the Spice Islands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WXndVmCEeo 13:15 to the end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpvJ_dB3ZkY from 14:25 to 17:10
 I think that this was one of my better key terms because it was clear, concise and straight to the point. I gave a good hook to introduce Videla and proceeded to tell about what he did and his importance in the book. I also made a very good comparison to Robespierre, which allowed the reader to get a grasp on what kind of a person Videla was. Finally I also did a very good job of incorporating quotes, giving them significance, and using them as evidence throughout the key term.
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