In August we posted about a joint Chinese-Kenyan expedition to locate the remains of a ship from the fleet of the legandary Chinese navigator, Zheng He. The ship was said to have sunk off Kenya near Lamu. Recently the team discovered … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
The HMS Belfast, a Royal Navy light cruiser, now a museum ship on the Thames, is the last surviving escort ship from the Arctic convoy run to Russia during World War II. Last week, in a ceremony attended by HRH Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, … Continue reading
We previously posted about a model of the Mayflower crafted from timber believed to used on the original ship that carried the Pilgrims to America. Alaric Bond passed along an article about a model of the HMS Victory by sculptor and … Continue reading
The final essay in Joseph Conrad’s wonderful, if somewhat odd book, The Mirror of the Sea, is entitled “The Heroic Age.” It starts out rather disappointingly as a paean to Nelson. There is nothing wrong with praising Nelson, except that everyone does it, so another bit … Continue reading
Horatio Nelson ‘was French football captain’, say children Research carried out to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar shows many schoolchildren believe that Horatio Nelson was captain of the French national football team in the 1990s. Almost one-in-four … Continue reading
A letter which only recently resurfaced gives an ordinary seaman’s view of the famous battle which was fought 205 years ago today. ‘They won’t send their fleets out again in a hurry’: Remarkable letter from hero who survived the Battle … Continue reading
The Hasholme boat, discovered in 1984 in a former inlet of the Humber estuary near Holme on Spalding Moor, dates from the late Iron Age ( 750-390 BC ). The boat was cut from a single oak tree and was originally roughly … Continue reading
The Brooklyn Navy Yard, in New York on the East River in Wallabout Basin, has always seemed to me to be equal parts working industrial park, living museum, and ghost town. The land was purchased by the Federal government in 1801 … Continue reading
We recently have had several posts regarding rogue waves – a review of Susan Casey’s new book The Wave and the BBC Documentary Freak Waves. Oceanographers generally dismissed reports of rogue waves as wild exaggerations or “sea stories,” until a rogue wave was documented … Continue reading
Today in the Bucks County Courthouse in Pennsylvania, a 20-inch-long and 22-inch-tall model of the Mayflower, the ship that carried English separatists, known as Pilgrims, to Massachusetts in 1620, will go on public display for the first time in the United States. The … Continue reading
Today, October 13th, is celebrated as the birthday of the United States Navy, not to be confused with Navy Day, which is celebrated on October 27th. The current “birthday” may have more to do with bragging rights than real birthdays. For many years, the … Continue reading
Today is Columbus Day in the United States (and Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Happy Thanksgiving Canadians.) Columbus Day is celebrated tomorrow in Spain. Every year about this time, various scholars and pundits emerge to denigrate the memory of the Genoese naviator and explorer. There were indeed many things … Continue reading
Today is the birthday of Rear Admiral Eugene Bennett Fluckey, known as “Lucky Fluckey,” who died in 2007 at the age of 94. In addition to having one of the truly great nicknames, he was one of the greatest submarine skippers of … Continue reading
A new exhibition opened at the at the Maryland Science Center, Odyssey’s Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure, that will run through January 30, 2011. Exploring pirates and shipwrecks at the Maryland Science Center … Continue reading
This week 1,000 Royal Navy Medical Officer Journals were made available to the public at the British National Archives in Kew. The journals are revealing, if often disturbing by modern standards. From drunken mutinies to disease outbreaks to … Continue reading
Happy National Coffee Day! I don’t know who decided that today was National Coffee Day, nor even why we should necessarily be celebrating it. However, as a confirmed and happily contented coffee addict, perhaps this is a good time … Continue reading
An update on our post from last June on the SS Robin, an 1890 built steam coaster, the last of her kind and the oldest complete steamship in the world. She arrived in Tillbury last week aboard a a custom built pontoon barge in … Continue reading
The Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 were killed. The exact position of the sunken ship … Continue reading
In light of the recent claims in Louise Patten’s new book, Good as Gold , which we posted about earlier this week, we are very pleased to welcome Tim Maltin, author of 101 Things You Thought You Knew About the Titanic…But Didn’t, as guest … Continue reading
In Good as Gold, a new book by Louise Patten, the granddaughter of the most senior surviving officer on the Titanic, reveals a long hidden family secret. She claims that an error in steering on the bridge of the Titanic led to the collision … Continue reading