‘Battle of Quiberon Bay' (c1765), from 'Old Naval Prints' by Charles N Robinson and Geoffrey Holme (The Studio Limited, London), 1924. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Naval battles

The battle of Sandwich: England’s medieval Trafalgar.

The crew of SMS King in its home port following the battle of the Skagerrak, June 1916. (Photo by A Renard/ullstein image via Getty Images)

First World War

Jutland: the battle that won the First World War

The German battleship Bismarck of the German Kriegsmarine during early World War II

Second World War

Bismarck: why was the WW2 German battleship so feared? Plus 9 things you didn’t know about its only mission

US marines advance up Iwo Jima's beaches

Second World War

The battle for Iwo Jima: why did it happen and why was it so hard fought?

Mural of the battle of Actium from 1600

Actium, 31 BC: the beginning of the end for Mark Antony and Cleopatra

Elizabeth I arrives in Tilbury

The Spanish Armada: one of history’s biggest fibs?.

The US cutter Spencer attacks U-boat U-175

The Battle of the Atlantic: why Britain almost lost to Hitler's U-boats.

British ships on convoy duty in the North Atlantic

Danger in the deep: key questions about the Battle of the Atlantic answered.

The Battle of the Atlantic: the "desperate" WW2 campaign featured in Tom Hanks film Greyhound.

Ill mannered discussions: Chinese leader General Chiang Kai-shek, US president Franklin D Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill meet at the Cairo Conference in November 1943. (Photo by Getty Images)

VE Day at 75Preparing for peace: why WW2 felt like a war without an end.

Flying the flag: A sailor signals a merchant ship in the Thames Estuary, 1939. Allied maritime capacity was paramount in the final victory. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Second World War

WW2: Why did the Allies win the Second World War?

Illustration of Elizabeth I in a cage

What if...The Spanish Armada had landed?.

Okinawa: the battle and the bomb.

The US assault on Okinawa

The WW2 battle of Okinawa: the bloodiest assault of the Pacific War.

Midway: the Pacific War on screen.

'Yorktown' sustains a hit during the battle of Midway. The US aircraft carrier sank three days later but, by then, the Japanese had accepted that their attempt to land a war-winning blow had failed. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

How miraculous was the battle of Midway?.

The HMS Victory in Portsmouth

A visit to HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar.

Britain didn't "rule the waves" after the battle of Trafalgar, says historian Sam Willis.

Clash between the English Temeraire and the French Redoutable ships during the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

The battle of Trafalgar.

Dornier 217 bombers of the Luftwaffe bomb London during the Battle of Britain. "The crucial role of the RAF in denying the Germans control of the air in 1940 and therefore persuading Hitler to abandon his invasion plans is so well known that it might seem almost sacrilegious to question it, " says Sean Lang. "But was it solely responsible for saving Britain from invasion? Not quite." (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

9 of the most overrated battles in history (and one underrated one).

Winner takes all: A painting shows the French ship 'Redoutable' clashing with the British 'Temeraire'. "Regardless of the victory off Cape Trafalgar, it was another decade before Britain and her allies defeated Napoleon. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Trafalgar, a futile victory? Why Nelson's triumph didn't turn the tide on Napoleon.

The battle for Okinawa: one Marine’s story.

HMS Portsmouth, Hampshire. (Getty Images)

History explorerHMS Victory and the Georgian navy.

Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in WWI. (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

Churchill’s navy.

Captain James Lawrence of the Chesapeake is wounded

The capture of the Chesapeake: how the British Royal Navy rescued its reputation in the War of 1812.

The Spanish Armada defeated in the English Channel in July 1588, by Hendrick Cornelis Vroom, c1600. (Picture by DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Spanish Armada

The remains of a 1940 naval battle in Narvik, Norway – several battles between German and Norwegian forces took place in the Ofotfjord in the spring of 1940. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)

The Navy and the battle for Britain in 1940.

America in World War One and a naval tragedy.

5 facts you (probably) didn’t know about Nelson’s navy.

Operation Barbarossa.