(Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with.)

The weather phenomenon known as El Nino may have helped Ferdinand Magellan navigate the first successful trip around the globe in 1520.

A recent study claims the explorer encountered calm waters off the western coast of South America, an area of sea that is normally rough, thanks to abnormal weather patterns similar to those during an El Nino.

The findings are supported by tree-ring data that indicates an El Nino may have been doing that thing it does between 1518 and 1520, the same time Magellan was attempting to reach what is now Indonesia.

Though the circumstances were right for circumnavigating the globe, there was a downside. It allowed the explorer to make it to the Philippines, where he was killed by natives.

Oh, El Nino, you wily storm center, you.