A Royal Navy 28 gun frigate c1794

Maritime history

A Roman galley warship

Q&AHow did a crow help Rome defeat Carthage?

Two survivors of the Lusitania disaster

Did Britain doom the Lusitania?

A painting showing the defeat of the Spanish Armada

The Spanish Armada: all at sea

View of a sham fight on the Serpentine, Hyde Park, London, 1814

The year when fear of Napoleon stalked the land

The North Sea and Bronze Age remains. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tudors at sea: 8 ways to survive a voyage

Picture depicting the Dogger Bank Incident

Q&AWhat was the 'North Sea Outrage'?

Photo of HMS Hood

Second World War

Q&AWhy did HMS Hood sink so quickly in 1941?

An oil painting by John Cleveley The Elder depicting the Royal Naval Dockyard

The quest for longitude: the men who mapped the surface of the earth

Destroyer escorts fire depth charges against submarine raiders in the Atlantic during the Second World War. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

What the modern navy did for us

The LibraryJohnnie Walker: U-boat hunter in the Second World War

My history hero: Horatio Nelson (1758-1805). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Spanish Armada: Tudor spin portrayed the events of August 1588 as a glorious English victory but, argues Robert Hutchinson, bad weather and bad tactics had more to do with the Spanish fleet's failure than Elizabethan derring-do. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

The Spanish Armada: England's lucky escape

Nelson mortally wounded at Trafalgar in 1805

Nelson: the unhappy admiral

A coloured engraving from the 16th century depicting Walter Ralegh's arrival in Virginia. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Tudors in America: how England's New World colonies came into being

The battle of the Nile, fought at night in the Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria. (Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Second World War

Britain’s 10 most significant naval battles

An American privateer is shown repelling a British attack during the War of 1812. Despite some notable successes, the British regarded the entire conflict as a sideshow and quickly forgot it. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

When Washington burned

The RMS Titanic. (Image by Perspectives/Getty Images)

Where history happened: The Titanic disaster. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

'Tirpitz' hiding in a Norwegian fjord in 1942. “She outclassed anything in the British fleet,” says Patrick Bishop. (Getty Images)

The Second World War: sinking the Tirpitz

Second World War arctic convoys. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The East India Company and Nelson. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

1492: The Year Our World Began

Captain Kidd

The sacrifice of Captain Kidd

News for the BBC's Domesday Project and the future of the National Archives. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Spain's maritime decline

The LibraryOld and new - a look at the Merchant Navy and modern-day western supremacy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Two women from South America. Six centuries ago South American civilisations matched the west in some respects. (Getty Images)

The wonder of the west

Toilers of the deep: the lives of Edwardian deep sea fishermen

Where history happened: Dunkirk. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A ship in a storm

How did Britain come to rule the waves?