To Americans and the French, a billion means a thousand millions (1,000,000,000, or 10 to the ninth, what some British call a milliard, a term that seems never to have been widely accepted).
According to Anglo history, Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery on January 27, 1596, aged 55 while anchored off the coast of Puerto Bello, Panama after an unsuccessful campaig â¦ n against the Spanish. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, near Puerto Bello.
Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) was born to a Protestant family in Devonshire. He first went to sea when about ten years old as an apprentice to a master with a coastal freighter, but came to fame as a pirate and explorer. He accompanied his cousin, Sir John Hawkins, on the ill-fated slaving expedition in 1567 that was attacked by the Spanish (see AJ-031).