Maritime history

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Historian and writer William Dalrymple during the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017 (Photo by Martina Bocchio / Awakening / Alamy)

William Dalrymple on the East India Company . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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William Dalrymple is an award-winning writer and historian based in India. (Photo by Bikramjt Bose)

“This was a corporation that could topple kings”: William Dalrymple on the East India Company . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

dreamstime_5704214CASTAWAYS_ext-d2951eb

Castaways: 5 remarkable shipwreck stories from history

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The HMS Victory in Portsmouth

A visit to HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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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 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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

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The Endurance, the ship of Ernest Shackleton

My history hero: Ernest Shackleton (d1922) . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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

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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 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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