Vasco De Nunez Balboa

Vasco De Nunez Balboa is credited with discovering the Pacific Ocean but he might have accomplished even more had not jealousy and treachery intervened. Balboa secretly hid himself in a cask on his voyage to Santa Maria del Darien in what is today the country of Panama. The captain of the ship, Enciso, eventually turned on Vasco De Nunez and related his vituperation to King Ferdinand of Spain. As a result Balboa was executed in 1517 after a rigged trial in Darien. It may be speculated that had he lived he would have explored the great ocean he discovered in the name of Spain.