Ship of the Line: Did you mean...?

Captain Samuel Bellamy, aka 'Black Sam' Bellamy (d. 1717), was a British pirate active during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730). Bellamy’s final ship Whydah was wrecked off Cape Cod in a storm, and the pirate captain drowned...

John Rolfe (l. 1585-1622 CE) was an English merchant and colonist of Jamestown best known as the husband of Pocahontas (l. c. 1596-1617 CE). He is also known, however, for his successful cultivation of tobacco in Virginia which established...

Henry Every (b. 1653), also known as Henry Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, ‘Long Ben’ and (incorrectly) John Avery, was one of the most savage and successful pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy. Capturing a treasure ship of the Mughal...

Frontal view of the Viking ship known as the Gokstad, housed at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway. The ship dates from c. 900 CE and was preserved in a ship burial found in Oslo fjord. The lapstrake technique in which...

Full view of the Oseberg Viking ship dating from c. 820 CE discovered in a lavish ship burial setting in Oslo fjord, Norway. The ship is housed in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway.

Archimedes (l. 287-212 BCE) was a Greek engineer and inventor who is regarded as the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one the greatest of all time. He is credited with a number of inventions still in use today (such as the...

The U-boat, short for Unterseeboot (undersea boat), was the name for submarines used by the German Navy during the First World War (1914-18) and Second World War (1939-45). In the two Battles of the Atlantic...

Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596 CE) was an English mariner, privateer and explorer who in 1588 CE helped defeat the Spanish Armada of Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598 CE) which attempted to invade the kingdom of Elizabeth I of England...

Mediterranean trade increased exponentially at the turn of the first millennium. During Rome's zenith, goods of all sorts began to move in all directions. As a common traveler aboard merchant ships, Paul...

While there have been pirates and privateers of all nationalities, some Dutch mariners were particularly troublesome in the early modern period, targeting, in particular, the Spanish Main but also shipping in the eastern...