Maritime history

BBC/See-Saw Films/Nick Wall

“A dead whale or a stove boat”: whaling in the 19th century

Allied convoy PQ 17 is attacked by a German torpedo aircraft on its way across the Arctic Ocean, c1942. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

“The worst journey in the world”: the Arctic convoys of the Second World War

Premium

Robert Hutchinson answers your questions on England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. (Image by Getty Images)

The Spanish Armada: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Premium

Saul David discusses his new history of the Special Boat Service – a daring maritime unit that played a crucial role in Allied victory in WW2.

The Special Boat Service: WW2’s silent heroes . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of English admiral Lord Horatio Nelson

Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson: a rebel with a cause

Fridtjof Nansen: Explorer, scientist, writer, humanitarian

The first great polar expedition: Fridtjof Nansen’s 1888 traverse of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Premium

Tim Maltin answers listener questions about the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. (Image by Getty Images)

Titanic: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English sailors engage the French invasion fleet at the battle of Sandwich in 1217.

The battle of Sandwich: England’s medieval Trafalgar

Premium

The feared WW2 German battleship 'Bismarck', May 1941. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Quiz How well do you know your warships? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An aerial view of Tahiti

Jeanne Baret: the first known woman to circumnavigate the globe

Premium

Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the ‘golden age’ of piracy, when bands of buccaneers menaced the high seas, preying on merchant vessels.

The golden age of piracy: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

A 19th-century engraving depicts a member of the crew of the 'Mignonette'

Cannibalism at sea: the starving Victorian sailors who ate a cabin boy

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

Explorer Ferdinand Magellan

Dire straits: the story of Ferdinand Magellan’s fatal voyage of discovery