Throughout 1797, with Holland in enforced alliance with Revolutionary France, the British Admiral Adam Duncan had been stationed watching the Dutch fleet in Den Helder. His difficulty in maintaining ...

A contemporary Flemish interpretation of the launching of English fire-ships against the Spanish Armada. As Spain and England were in conflict, English piracy against Spanish ships was a continuing ...

(Updated, February 2017) An unfinished painting showing the death of Captain James Cook, at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, on 14 February 1779 at the hands of an incensed crowd, during his third Pacific ...

A photogravure after the painting, ‘Nelson’s Last Signal at Trafalgar’, by Thomas Davidson. Nelson is shown in the centre of the image standing on the deck of the ‘Victory’. He gestures towards the ...

This painting by the German artist Claus Bergen shows the recently built German ship ‘Admiral Scheer’ engaged in action during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The vessel, named after Admiral Reinhard ...

An action during the Napoleonic War, 1803-15. On 15 September 1805 Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson re-hoisted his flag in the 'Victory', 100 guns, at Portsmouth and sailed to join Vice-Admiral Cuthbert ...

The National Maritime Museum is brimming with fascinating nautical objects, ranging from royal barges to Roman anchors, Tudor ship models, historic maps, figureheads, and everything in between. The ...

Discover the story behind the media sensation Ruth Belville, who brought the correct time from the Royal Observatory to London for almost 50 years. If you worked in London between the 1890s and the ...

Learn more about the nocturnal or ‘nocturlabe’, used for centuries to tell the time based on the movement of the stars Imagine you’re in a dark countryside location, away from city lights, on a clear ...

This month, we explore what cultural astronomy is, why the same stars inspire such different stories, and how to share sky knowledge respectfully. Along the way, we hear from The Sky We Share book ...

Nanny of the Maroons, thought to have been born around 1686, led a community of formerly enslaved Africans called the Windward Maroons in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains in the early 18th century. Under ...

The loss of the 1845 British Naval Northwest Passage expedition was devastating: 129 men had set sail on an expedition to finally chart a Northwest Passage across the top of the North American ...