In this latest video blog from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Chris Dobbs, Head of Interpretation at the Mary Rose Trust, talks us through the designing of the new carpenters cabin display, which is due to go into the new museum in … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
In 1840, when she arrived off their coast, the Chinese called the Honourable East India Company ship Nemesis, the devil ship. She was the first British ocean-going iron warship. In addition to two masts, she was powered by two two sixty … Continue reading
Two hundred years ago today the USS Revenge, under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry, sank in the waters off Rhode Island. On Friday, divers, Charles Buffum, Mike Fournier and Craig Harger, announced that they believe that they have located the wreck. In … Continue reading
On the night of December 7,1942 ten British commandos set off in five wood and canvas canoes from a British submarine in the Bay of Biscay off the coast of occupied France. Their intent was to paddle 75 miles up the Gironde estuary and attack … Continue reading
An interesting if odd news item today: Cretan Tools Point To 130,000-Year-Old Sea Travel Archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered what may be evidence of one of the world’s first sea voyages by human ancestors, the Greek Culture … Continue reading
Forty seven years ago, passengers on the cruise ship Lakonia were promised “a marvelous Christmas cruise to sunny Madeira and the Canary Islands.” The brochure read – “Have your holiday with all risk eliminated. Enjoy a holiday you will remember for … Continue reading
A glimpse at the new Mary Rose museum, hosted by Alan Titchmarch. The museum is intended to open in 2012, the 500th anniversary of the delivery of the Mary Rose. Alan Titchmarsh explores the Mary Rose Museum and encourages fundraising … Continue reading
David Hayes passed along a video of the USS Pegasus, a hydrofoil patrol boat that was billed as the “vanguard of the new navy,” thirty five years ago. While the Pegasus was not the first of many hydrofoils as was intended in 1975, the development … Continue reading
Perhaps foreshadowing our own information age, World War II’s “Battle of the Atlantic” between German submarine wolf-packs and Allied convoys was largely won and nearly lost by the code breakers of Bletchley Park. In 1940, Alan Turing had begun to … Continue reading
Bernard Cornwell‘s introduction to his review of Sam Willis’s book, “The Fighting Temeraire,” is as dramatic as it is sadly accurate. He writes: At Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, the battle-cruiser USS Olympia lies glorious and doomed. The oldest steel warship in … Continue reading
On December 11, 1710, the English ship Nottingham Galley came ashore on Boon Island, off Cape Neddick, Maine, stranding its 14 man crew, of whom four would subsequently die. It became one of the best known shipwrecks in New England … Continue reading
The almost 30 year restoration of the James Craig is a wonderful story of volunteers rescuing an old windjammer, rusting away on a Tasmanian beach. The three masted iron barque, James Craig, originally named Clan Macleod, was built by Bartram, … Continue reading
In 1901, the Antiythera mechanism was pulled from a Roman shipwreck. It is believed to date from approximately 90 BC. For years no one knew what to make of the strange clock-like device until advanced digital radiographs revealed that it was … Continue reading
Two interesting stories of shipwrecks in the press recently – the wreck of the Titanic is being consumed by newly identified steel-munching bacteria, while scientists are discovering large numbers of well preserved shipwrecks in the dark and cold Baltic where there are 1,500 confirmed wrecks … Continue reading
The Original Pearl Harbor Attack Radio Emergency Broadcast from Washington DC Thanks to Dave Shirlaw on the Marine History list for pointing out the video. … Continue reading