Maritime history

Henry VIII's Mary Rose (© 19th era/Alamy)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose

An episode of the naval battle at Trafalgar: the ship Redoutable (French) against the vessels Victory (British), Téméraire (British) and Thunderer (British). (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images).

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

Winner takes all: A painting shows the French ship 'Redoutable' clashing with the British 'Temeraire'.

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

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4 revelations about the Titanic disaster

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 Endurance, the ship of Ernest Shackleton

My history hero: Ernest Shackleton (d1922)

Illustration by Davide Bonazzi

Did the Age of Exploration bring more harm than good?

James Cook, commander of HMS 'Endeavour', meets Tahitians in an 18th-century engravings. The ship's naturalist Joseph Banks declared the Polynesian island

How the arrival of Europeans rocked the native cultures of Tahiti and Australia

Captain Edward Teach, better known as 'Blackbeard', a pirate who plundered the coasts of the West Indies, North Carolina and Virginia. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

6 despicable pirates from history

HMS Bittern on fire and severely damaged after a German air attack in Namsos fjord, 30 April 1940. Both sides sustained heavy losses in the battle of Norway but the German navy was less able to absorb these than its British foe. (Photo by Topfoto)

Second World War

The Library The battle for Norway, 1940: the forgotten Battle of Britain

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

A 19th-century depiction of HMS Erebus in the ice, by François Etienne Musin. What exactly happened to the ship and its crew remains a mystery. (Picture by Alamy)

Michael Palin on HMS Erebus and the doomed Franklin Expedition of 1845

The opening ceremony of London’s Tower Bridge on 30 June 1894. The bridge became a symbol of London’s importance as a global maritime hub (Photo by Francis Frith/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Britain’s imperial landmarks: The empire on our doorsteps

British troops go over the top of the trenches during the Battle of the Somme, 1916. The Somme was one of the bloodiest clashes of the First World War, causing more than one million casualties over five months. (Photo by Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

First World War

The First World War: Was it worth it?