Your answer, assuming you are at least moderately educated or a trivia quiz nerd, will probably be Ferdinand Magellan.

Wrong.

Magellan was certainly the expedition leader of the first successful circumnavigation of the world, but he didn't survive it. He entered the Pacific via the Straits of Magellan (amazing coincidence that) and got as far as The Philippines before being killed in battle.

Now call me a stickler, but I can't help feeling that living through something is quite a significant factor in it being considered a success. I don't think that Edmund Hillary would be known as the first man to climb Everest if he'd died halfway up and been carried the rest of the way by Tenzing Norgay. Similarly, had Neil Armstrong expired en route to the moon, I'm fairly sure Buzz Aldrin would be the celebrated one (even if he'd thrown Armstrong's by now rank corpse out first). So why is it that Magellan gets to be remembered, when out of the 240 men who set out with him 18 survived who could genuinely lay claim to being the first men round the world? The only reason I even know this is that one of the main thoroughfares in Malaga, where I lived briefly, is called J S Elcano Street. Juan Sebastian Elcano was the Spaniard who took over from Magellan and who (if a figurehead must be selected for as combined an effort as a circumnavigation) has had his rightful place in history somewhat usurped.

Elcano himself died in the Pacific five years later, attempting the second round the world trip. A bloke called Andres de Urdaneta took over and finished the job. Perhaps Iberian sailors have been carrying on like this ever since, setting off full of hope, only for the expedition leader to perish en route and the second in command to take over. For 500 years Spaniards have been going round and round the world, dying one at a time. You'd think that by now one of them might have declined the opportunity to take charge. "The captain's dead!" [Cue a deckful of sailors twiddling their thumbs and looking at their feet.]

I think Magellan sets an interesting precedent, and it's one I intend to use to ensure my own immortality. If it is the case that so long as you start something you'll be acclaimed for its ultimate success whether or not you're actually still breathing at the time, then I shall, shortly before my death, initiate a whole raft of projects designed to enshrine me in legend. Off the top of my head I will be starting the Total Cure for Cancer Society, an expedition to Mars, the definitive explanation of the origins of the universe ('Andrew's Theorem'), the Global Peace Project and a documentary film entitled 'Man Learns To Fly Unaided'. Future generations will see me as the ultimate adventurer polymath.