An updated repost fitting for the day. Happy 4th of July! Those of us in the United States celebrate the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776. Immediately after declaring independence from Great Britain, the representatives in the Continental Congress drank a toast … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
The BBC reports that explorers have found the deepest shipwreck ever identified, a US navy destroyer escort sunk during WWII. The USS Samuel B Roberts went down during the Battle Off Samar in the Philippine Sea in October 1944. It … Continue reading
Happy Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth National Independence Day is also the newest Federal holiday. The legislation, passed by both the House and Senate, was signed into law by … Continue reading
In 2010, we posted about the mystery of the “beeswax ship,” the wreck of a Spanish galleon that left shards of Chinese pottery and blocks of beeswax in the sand of an Oregon beach. Now, National Geographic reports that timbers … Continue reading
The carrier USS Kitty Hawk has arrived at a scrapping yard in Brownsville, Texas after an epic 16,000-mile journey from Washington state. The carrier, too large to fit through the Panama Canal at over 280 feet wide, was towed around … Continue reading
The wreck of HMS Gloucester, a 50-gun, third-rate, Royal Navy warship, which sank in 1682 while carrying the future king James Stuart, has been identified off the coast of Norfolk. According to Prof Claire Jowitt, a specialist in maritime history … Continue reading
Twenty-seven years ago, a plan was conceived to reconstruct Maine’s first ship, Virginia, built by in 1607 by settlers of the Popham Colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River. The original 51′ pinnace was the first English ocean-going ship … Continue reading
The Battle of Midway, fought from June 4 — 7, 1942, eighty years ago this week, was a major American victory in the Pacific theater in World War II. Military historian John Keegan called it “the most stunning and decisive … Continue reading
On Memorial Day, an updated repost about the last mission of the USS Olympia in 1921, when she carried an American unknown soldier killed during World War I from a cemetery in France back to Washington to be entombed at … Continue reading
U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has announced that a future Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer will be named the USS Telesforo Trinidad in honor of a Filipino sailor who rescued two crew members when their ship caught fire … Continue reading
An intriguing account by the BBC of archeological serendipity that began with a trip to the dentist. The Battle of the Aegates was a naval battle fought on 10 March 241 BC between the fleets of Carthage and Rome during … Continue reading
The question is not so much whether the wreck of Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour rests at the bottom of the harbor in Newport, RI, but rather which of several wrecks it may be. The Endeavour, renamed Lord Sandwich and outfitted … Continue reading
When the burial ship at Sutton Hoo in the UK was uncovered in 1939, the ship itself was missing. The wooden planks and frames of the ship, dating from around 600 AD, had rotted away. Nevertheless, an almost intact impression … Continue reading
Yesterday we posted about the patrol ship, the Grille, described by some as “Hitler’s yacht.” Today we will look at a second vessel to bear the same title — the Ostwind. In 1936, the German government had two racing sailboats built, … Continue reading
With the advent of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, we have posted about superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs including several yachts that may or may not be owned by the dictator himself. Here is a two-part post about yachts associated … Continue reading
Here is another old favorite, a companion repost to yesterday’s repost of “The Unsinkable Hugh Williams – Truth Behind the Legend?” We recently posted in response to a video, “The Strangest Coincidence Ever Recorded?.” It recounted how three men named Hugh … Continue reading
I am traveling this week, so it seems like a good time to repost an old blog favorite, the remarkable story of the unsinkable Hugh Williams. There is a video bouncing around the web these days called “The Strangest Coincidence … Continue reading
Yesterday we posted about the What, How, & Why of the Ancient Principle of General Average. Here is a repost about a massacre, in which general average was declared involving a shipment of human cargo. On November 29, 1781, the … Continue reading
Following several attempts to free the Ever Forward, the ship’s owner declared General Average, citing “the increasing costs arising from the continued attempts to refloat the vessel.” What this means, in practice, is that the owners of the cargo now … Continue reading
A reconstruction of the pinnace Virginia is nearing completion after being under construction for over a decade in Bath, Maine. The original 51-foot pinnace, built in 1607 by the Popham Colony at its settlement at the mouth of the Kennebec … Continue reading