1.
Naval mine
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A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, Naval mines can be used offensively—to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour, or defensively—to protect friendly vessels and create safe zones. Mines can be laid in many ways, by purpose-built minelayers, refitted ships, submarines and their flexibility and cost-effectiveness make mines attractive to the less powerful belligerent in asymmetric warfare. The cost of producing and laying a mine is usually anywhere from 0. 5% to 10% of the cost of removing it, parts of some World War II naval minefields still exist because they are too extensive and expensive to clear. It is possible for some of these 1940s-era mines to remain dangerous for many years to come, Mines have been employed as offensive or defensive weapons in rivers, lakes, estuaries, seas, and oceans, but they can also be used as tools of psychological warfare. Offensive mines are placed in enemy waters, outside harbours and across important shipping routes with the aim of sinking both merchant and military vessels. Defensive minefields safeguard key stretches of coast from enemy ships and submarines, forcing them into more easily defended areas, minefields designed for psychological effect are usually placed on trade routes and are used to stop shipping from reaching an enemy nation. They are often spread thinly, to create an impression of minefields existing across large areas, a single mine inserted strategically on a shipping route can stop maritime movements for days while the entire area is swept. International law requires nations to declare when they mine an area, the warnings do not have to be specific, for example, during World War II, Britain declared simply that it had mined the English Channel, North Sea, and French coast. Chinese records tell of naval explosives in the 16th century, used to fight against Japanese pirates and this kind of naval mine was loaded in a wooden box, sealed with putty. General Qi Jiguang made several timed, drifting explosives, to harass Japanese pirate ships, although this is the rotating steel wheellocks first use in naval mines, Jiao Yu had described their use for land mines back in the 14th century. The first plan for a sea mine in the West was by Ralph Rabbards, the Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel was employed in the Office of Ordnance by King Charles I of England to make weapons, including a floating petard which proved a failure. Weapons of this type were apparently tried by the English at the Siege of La Rochelle in 1627, American David Bushnell developed the first American naval mine for use against the British in the American War of Independence. It was a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the enemy and it was used on the Delaware River as a drift mine. In 1812 Russian engineer Pavel Shilling exploded a mine using an electrical circuit. Russian naval specialists set more than 1500 naval mines, or infernal machines, designed by Moritz von Jacobi and by Immanuel Nobel, the mining of Vulcan led to the worlds first minesweeping operation. During the next 72 hours,33 mines were swept, the Jacobi mine was designed by German born, Russian engineer Jacobi, in 1853. The mine was tied to the sea bottom by an anchor, a cable connected it to a cell which powered it from the shore
2.
Warhead
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The term warhead refers to the explosive or toxic material that is delivered by a missile, rocket, or torpedo. Types of warheads include, Explosive, An explosive charge is used to disintegrate the target, conventional, Chemicals such as gunpowder and high explosives store significant energy within their molecular bonds. This energy can be released quickly by a trigger, such as an electric spark, thermobaric weapons enhance the blast effect by utilizing the surrounding atmosphere in their explosive reactions. Blast, A strong shock wave is provided by the detonation of the explosive, fragmentation, Metal fragments are projected at high velocity to cause damage or injury. Continuous rod, Metal bars welded on their ends form a cylinder of interconnected rods. The rapidly expanding ring produces a planar cutting effect that is devastating against military aircraft, shaped charge, The effect of the explosive charge is focused onto a specially shaped metal liner to project a hypervelocity jet of metal, to perforate heavy armour. Nuclear, A runaway nuclear fission or nuclear fusion reaction causes immense energy release, chemical, A toxic chemical, such as poison gas or nerve gas, is dispersed, which is designed to injure or kill human beings. Biological, An infectious agent, such as spores, is dispersed. Often, a biological or chemical warhead will use a charge for rapid dispersal. Type of detonators include Guidance system List of aircraft weapons List of missiles Nuclear weapon yield Missile The Nuclear Weapon Archive, the B61 Bomb - Intermediate yield strategic and tactical thermonuclear bomb. Atomic Audit - The Costs and Consequences of U. S, ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB, Utah. NNSA Achieves Significant Milestone for B61 Bomb, Nuclear Weapons, The Secret History, pp. 162–164
3.
Battleship
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A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, the word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as dreadnoughts. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, the launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the war, the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday, there were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected, and used to justify the vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War for fire support purposes before being stricken from the U. S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns, from 1794, the alternative term line of battle ship was contracted to battle ship or battleship. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull, knocking down masts, wrecking her rigging, and killing her crew. However, the range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards. The first major change to the ship of the concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft. The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850—the first true steam battleship, Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind condition. This was a decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships, the adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad, powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. In the Crimean War, six ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853
4.
Naval artillery
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Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare, later also for naval gunfire support against targets on land, and for anti-aircraft use. The idea of artillery dates back to the classical era. Julius Caesar indicates the use of ship-borne catapults against Britons ashore in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, the dromons of the Byzantine Empire carried catapults and fire-throwers. From the late Middle Ages onwards, warships began to carry cannon of various calibres, the Battle of Arnemuiden, fought between England and France in 1338 at the start of the Hundred Years War, was the first recorded European naval battle using artillery. The English ship Christopher was armed with three cannons and one hand gun, by the 15th century most Mediterranean powers were utilising heavy cannon mounted on the bow or stern of a vessel and designed to bombard fortresses on shore. By mid-century some vessels also carried smaller broadside cannons for bombarding other vessels immediately prior to an attempted boarding and these small guns were anti-personnel weapons and were fired at point blank range to accompany engagement with muskets or bows. From the 1470s both the Portuguese and Venetian navies were experimenting with cannons as anti-ship weapons, in 1489 John of Portugal further contributed to the development of naval artillery by establishing the first standardized teams of trained naval gunners. The 16th century was an era of transition in naval warfare, since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much like that on land, with melee weapons and bows and arrows, but on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. As guns became heavier and able to more powerful gunpowder charges, they needed to be placed lower in the ship. Although some 16th-century galleys mounted broadside cannon, they did so at the expense of rowing positions which sacrificed speed, most early cannon were still placed in the forecastle and aftercastle of a ship where they might be conveniently pointed in any direction. Early naval artillery was a weapon to deter boarders, because cannon powerful enough to damage ships were heavy enough to destabilize any ship mounting them in an elevated castle. Being a crown industry, cost considerations did not curb the pursuit of the best quality, best innovations, the crown paid wage premiums and bonuses to lure the best European artisans and gunners to advance the industry in Portugal. This made broadsides, coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship, possible for the first time in history, at least in theory. Ships, such as Mary Rose, carried a mixture of cannon of different types and sizes, many designed for land use, and using incompatible ammunition at different ranges and rates of fire. The Mary Rose, like other ships of the time, was built during a period of development of heavy artillery. The heavy armament was a mix of older-type wrought iron and cast bronze guns, the bronze guns were cast in one piece and rested on four-wheel carriages which were essentially the same as those used until the 19th century. The breech-loaders were cheaper to produce and both easier and faster to reload, but could take less powerful charges than cast bronze guns, the majority of the guns were small iron guns with short range that could be aimed and fired by a single person
5.
Torpedo boat
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A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and they were created to counter battleships and other slow and heavily armed ships by using speed, agility, and the power of their torpedo weapons. A number of torpedo boats attacking en masse could overwhelm a larger ships ability to fight them off using its large. The introduction of fast torpedo boats in the late 19th century was a concern to the eras naval strategists. In response, navies operating large ships introduced smaller ships to torpedo boats. The destroyer eventually became the predominant type of warship in the guided missile age. In the modern era, the old concept of a small, fast. The American Civil War saw a number of innovations in warfare, including an early type of torpedo boat. In 1861 President Lincoln instituted a blockade of Southern ports. The South also lacked the means to construct a fleet capable of taking on the Union Navy on even terms. One strategy to counter the blockade saw the development of torpedo boats, the David class of torpedo boats were steam powered with a partially enclosed hull. They were not true submarines but were semi-submersible, when ballasted, only the smokestack, the CSS Midge and CSS St. Patrick were David-class torpedo boats. The CSS Squib and CSS Scorpion represented another class of boats that were also low built but had open decks. The Confederate torpedo boats were armed with spar torpedoes and this was a charge of powder in a waterproof case, mounted to the bow of the torpedo boat below the water line on a long spar. The torpedo boat attacked by ramming her intended target, which stuck the torpedo to the ship by means of a barb on the front of the torpedo. The torpedo boat would back away to a distance and detonate the torpedo. In general, the Confederate torpedo boats were not very successful and their low sides made them susceptible to swamping in high seas, and even to having their boiler fires extinguished by spray from their own torpedo explosions. Torpedo misfires and duds were common, in 1864 Union Naval Lieutenant Cushing fitted a steam launch with a spar torpedo to attack the Confederate ironclad Albemarle
6.
Submarine
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A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability, the term most commonly refers to a large, crewed vessel. It is also used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine. The noun submarine evolved as a form of submarine boat, by naval tradition, submarines are usually referred to as boats rather than as ships. Although experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the 19th century, Submarines were first widely used during World War I, and now figure in many navies large and small. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage, exploration and facility inspection, Submarines can also be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair. Submarines are also used in tourism, and for undersea archaeology, most large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical ends and a vertical structure, usually located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the sail in American usage, a conning tower was a feature of earlier designs, a separate pressure hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a propeller at the rear, and various hydrodynamic control fins, smaller, deep-diving and specialty submarines may deviate significantly from this traditional layout. Submarines use diving planes and also change the amount of water, Submarines have one of the widest ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. Submarines can work at greater depths than are survivable or practical for human divers, modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe, which in turn evolved from the diving bell. In 1578, the English mathematician William Bourne recorded in his book Inventions or Devises one of the first plans for an underwater navigation vehicle and its unclear whether he ever carried out his idea. The first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was designed and built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel and it was propelled by means of oars. By the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England, in 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill with water to submerge the craft, a mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemens Magazine reported that a design had initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. By this point of development, further improvement in design stagnated for over a century, until new industrial technologies for propulsion. The first military submarine was the Turtle, a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person and it was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to use screws for propulsion
7.
Frogman
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A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includes combat. Such personnel are known by the more formal names of combat diver, combatant diver. The word frogman arose from Italian uomo rana around 1940 from the appearance of a diver in a shiny drysuit, combat swimming is often used to mean combat diving. Such actions are a form of frogman activity and an important feature of naval special operations. The term frogman is occasionally used to refer to a scuba diver. Some sport diving clubs include the word Frogmen in their names, in the U. S. military and intelligence community, divers trained in scuba or CCUBA who deploy for tactical assault missions are called combat divers. S. Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmers, United States Naval Search and Rescue Swimmers, United States Air Force Special Operations Weather Technicians, in Britain, police divers have often been called police frogmen. Some countries tactical diver organizations include a translation of the word frogman in their names, e. g. Denmarks Frømandskorpset. Others call themselves by indefinite names such as special group 13, many nations and some irregular armed groups deploy or have deployed combat frogmen. Merriam-Webster defines a frogman as a person equipped for extended periods of underwater swimming, the Oxford English Dictionary states, A person who swims under water wearing a rubber suit, flippers, and an oxygen supply. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a frogman as, someone who swims or works underwater for a time wearing breathing equipment, flippers. The Macmillan Dictionary definition is identical for British and American English as, someone who does police or military work under water using special clothes, as an American definition, citing Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Copyright 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and they also indicate a trend of steadily decreasing usage from the mid 20th century to 2008, and the word may be obsolescent. The Dictionary of American Slang reports that colloquial meanings include a scuba diver, tactical diving is a branch of professional diving carried out by armed forces and tactical units. They may be divided into, Combat/assault divers, Special mission work divers, who do general work underwater. Work divers who are trained in defusing mines and removing other explosives underwater and these groups may overlap, and the same men may serve as assault divers and work divers, such as the Australian Clearance Diving Branch. The range of operations performed by these operatives includes, Amphibious assault, the vast majority of combat swimmer missions are simply to get from here to there and arrive suitably equipped and in sufficient physical condition to fight on arrival. The deployment of tactical forces using the arrival by water to assault land targets, oil platforms, the purposes are many, but include feint and deception, counter-drug, law enforcement, counter-terrorism, and counter-proliferation missions
8.
Electric ray
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The electric rays are a group of rays, flattened cartilaginous fish with enlarged pectoral fins, comprising the order Torpediniformes. They are known for being capable of producing an electric discharge, ranging from 8 to 220 volts, depending on species, used to stun prey, there are 69 species in four families. Perhaps the best known members are those of the genus Torpedo, the name comes from the Latin torpere, to be stiffened or paralyzed, referring to the effect on someone who handles or steps on a living electric ray. Electric rays have a rounded pectoral disc with two moderately large dorsal fins, and a stout muscular tail with a well-developed caudal fin. The body is thick and flabby, with loose skin with no dermal denticles or thorns. A pair of kidney-shaped electric organs are at the base of the pectoral fins, the snout is broad, large in the Narcinidae, but reduced in all other families. The mouth, nostrils, and five pairs of gill slits are underneath the disc, electric rays are found from shallow coastal waters down to at least 1,000 m deep. They are sluggish and slow-moving, propelling themselves with their tails and they feed on invertebrates and small fish. They lie in wait for prey below the sand or other substrate, using their electricity to stun, the electrogenic properties of electric rays have been known since antiquity. The ancient Greeks used electric rays to numb the pain of childbirth, in his dialogue Meno, Plato has the character Meno accuse Socrates of stunning people with his puzzling questions, in a manner similar to the way the torpedo fish stuns with electricity. Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician, recorded the use of fish for treatment of headaches. The electric ray may be the most electrosensitive of all animals and their eyes are on the top of their heads, resulting in poor vision that must be compensated for with the use of other senses, including detecting electricity. The organs are governed by four central nerves from each side of the lobe, or specialized brain lobe. The 60 or so species of rays are grouped into 12 genera. The Narkinae are sometimes elevated to a family, the Narkidae, the torpedinids feed on large prey, which are stunned using their electric organs and swallowed whole, while the narcinids specialize on small prey on or in the bottom substrate. Both groups use electricity for defense, but it is whether the narcinids use electricity in feeding
9.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
10.
Robert Fulton
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Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat called The North River Steamboat of Claremont. That steamboat went with passengers from New York City to Albany and back again, in 1800, he was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to design the Nautilus, which was the first practical submarine in history. He is also credited with inventing some of the worlds earliest naval torpedoes for use by the British Royal Navy, Robert Fulton was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, on November 14,1765. He had three sisters – Isabella, Elizabeth, and Mary, and a brother, Abraham. He then married Harriet Livingston and had four children, Julia, Mary, Cornelia and his father, Robert, had been a close friend to the father of painter Benjamin West. Fulton later met West in England and they became friends, Fulton stayed in Philadelphia for six years, where he painted portraits and landscapes, drew houses and machinery, and was able to send money home to help support his mother. In 1785 he bought a farm at Hopewell Township in Washington County for £80 Sterling and moved his mother, while in Philadelphia, he met Benjamin Franklin, then known not only for his political and writing abilities but his scientific and inventing knowledge, and other prominent figures. At age 23 he decided to visit Europe, Fulton came to England in 1786, carrying several letters of introduction to Americans abroad from the individuals he had met in Philadelphia. He had already corresponded with Benjamin West, and West took Fulton into his home, Fulton gained many commissions painting portraits and landscapes, which allowed him to support himself, but he continually experimented with mechanical inventions. He became caught up in the enthusiasm of the Canal Mania and he obtained a patent for this idea in 1794 and also began working on ideas for the steam power of boats. He published a pamphlet about canals and patented a dredging machine, in 1794 he moved to Manchester to gain practical knowledge of English canal engineering. Whilst there he became friendly with Robert Owen, the cotton manufacturer, however, this practical experience was not a success and he gave up the contract after a short time. In 1797 he went to Paris where his fame as an inventor was well known, in Paris, then along with London, the scientific centers of the 18th Century world, Fulton studied languages French, and German, along with mathematics and chemistry. He began to design torpedoes and submarines, in Paris, Fulton met James Rumsey, who sat for a portrait in Wests studio, where Fulton was an apprentice. Rumsey was an inventor from Virginia who ran his own first steamboat up the Potomac River near Shepherdstown, Fulton became very enthusiastic about the canals and in 1796 wrote a treatise on canal construction, suggesting improvements to locks and other features. Working for the Duke of Bridgewater between 1796 and 1799, he had a constructed in the Dukes timber yard, under the supervision of Benjamin Powell. After installation of the machinery supplied by the engineers Bateman and Sherratt of Salford, after expensive trials, because of the configuration of the design, it was feared the paddles may damage the clay lining of the canal and the experiment was eventually abandoned. In 1801 the Duke, impressed by the Charlotte Dundas constructed by William Symington, decided to order eight of such vessels for his canal, but when he died in 1803, the order was cancelled
11.
Gunpowder
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Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, the sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Black powder firearms are in limited use today in hunting, shooting, Black powder has been replaced for most industrial uses by high explosives such as dynamite. Black powder is assigned the UN number UN0027 and has a class of 1. 1D. It has a point of approximately 427–464 °C. The specific flash point may vary based on the composition of the gunpowder. Gunpowders specific gravity is 1. 70–1.82 or 1. 92–2.08, Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock until the half of the 19th century. Black powder is used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable. The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols, the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China, in the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Muslim world and Europe. The technology spread from China through the Middle East or Central Asia, the earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The most ardent protagonists were Nathaniel Halhad, Johann Backmann, Quintin Craufurd, however, due to lack of sufficient proof, these theories have not been widely accepted. A major problem confronting the study of the history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. The translation difficulty has led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence, early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings. For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations
12.
Nautilus (1800 submarine)
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Nautilus was a submarine first tested in 1800. Though preceded by Cornelius Drebbels vessel of 1620, Nautilus is often considered to be the first practical submarine, the Nautilus was designed between 1793 and 1797 by the American inventor Robert Fulton, then living in the French First Republic. He unsuccessfully proposed to the Directory that they subsidize its construction as a means to balance British seapower. His second, also unsuccessful, proposal to them was that he be paid nothing until the Nautilus had sunk British shipping, Fulton directed his next proposal to the Minister of Marine, who granted him permission to build. Fulton built the first Nautilus of copper sheets over iron ribs at the Perrier boatyard in Rouen and it was 21 ft 3 in long and 6 ft 4 in in the beam. Propulsion was provided by a screw propeller. The hollow iron keel was the vessels ballast tank, flooded and emptied to change buoyancy, two horizontal fins, diving planes in modern terms, on the stubby horizontal rudder controlled angle of dive. Overall, Nautilus resembled a modern submarine, such as the NR-1. The design included a dome, somewhat similar in appearance, if not function. When surfaced, a fan-shaped collapsible sail, reminiscent of popular on Chinese ships. Air, beyond that enclosed within the vessel, could be provided by a constructed of waterproofed leather. Nautilus was designed from the start to carry what Fulton called a carcass, a device on the top of the dome drove a spiked eye into the enemys wooden hull. The submarine then released its mine on a line that went through the eye, when the long line had paid out, the mine would strike the target hull and explode by a detonator. These carcasses were variously sized copper cylinders carrying between ten and two hundred pounds of gunpowder, contact with the hull triggered a gunlock mechanism. Nautilus first test dives were in the Seine at Rouen, in the Saint-Gervais dock and these tests were all successful, but the river current interfered with some tests, so Fulton took the boat to Le Havre to work in the quiet salt water of the harbor. He tested endurance with a lit, and found the flame did not challenge the air capacity of the snorkel. He also tested the speed of his two men cranking against that of two men rowing on the surface, Nautilus covered the 360 ft course two minutes faster than the rowing crew. During this time he changed the screw propeller to one with four vanes, like a windmill, on July 3,1801, at Le Havre, Fulton took the revised Nautilus down to the then-remarkable depth of 25 feet
13.
Warship
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A warship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to damage and are usually faster. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries weapons, ammunition. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also operated by individuals, cooperatives. In wartime, the distinction between warships and merchant ships is often blurred, in war, merchant ships are often armed and used as auxiliary warships, such as the Q-ships of the First World War and the armed merchant cruisers of the Second World War. Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service, until the threat of piracy subsided in the 19th century, it was normal practice to arm larger merchant ships such as galleons. Warships have also often used as troop carriers or supply ships. The development of catapults in the 4th century BC and the subsequent refinement of technology enabled the first fleets of artillery-equipped warships by the Hellenistic age. During late antiquity, ramming fell out of use and the galley tactics against other ships used during the Middle Ages until the late 16th century focused on boarding. Naval artillery was redeveloped in the 14th century, but cannon did not become common at sea until the guns were capable of being reloaded quickly enough to be reused in the same battle. The size of a required to carry a large number of cannons made oar-based propulsion impossible. The sailing man-of-war emerged during the 16th century, by the middle of the 17th century, warships were carrying increasing numbers of cannon on their broadsides and tactics evolved to bring each ships firepower to bear in a line of battle. The man-of-war now evolved into the ship of the line, in the 18th century, the frigate and sloop-of-war – too small to stand in the line of battle – evolved to convoy trade, scout for enemy ships and blockade enemy coasts. During the 19th century a revolution took place in the means of propulsion, naval armament. Marine steam engines were introduced, at first as an auxiliary force, the Crimean War gave a great stimulus to the development of guns. The introduction of explosive shells soon led to the introduction of iron, the first ironclad warships, the French Gloire and British Warrior, made wooden vessels obsolete. Metal soon entirely replaced wood as the material for warship construction
14.
Cornelis Drebbel
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Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel was the Dutch builder of the first navigable submarine in 1620. Drebbel was an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, optics, Cornelis Drebbel was born in Alkmaar, Holland in an Anabaptist family in 1572. After some years at the Latin school in Alkmaar, around 1587, he attended the Academy in Haarlem, teachers at the Academy were Hendrik Goltzius, engraver, painter, alchemist and humanist, Karel van Mander, painter, writer, humanist and Cornelis Corneliszoon of Haarlem. Drebbel became an engraver on copperplate and also took an interest in alchemy. In 1595 he married Sophia Jansdochter Goltzius, younger sister of Hendrick and they had at least six children, of whom four survived. Drebbel worked initially as a painter, engraver and cartographer, but he was in constant need of money because of the prodigal lifestyle of his wife. In 1598 he obtained a patent for a system and a sort of perpetual clockwork. In 1600, Drebbel was in Middelburg where he built a fountain at the Noorderpoort and he met there with Hans Lippershey, spectacle maker and constructor of telescopes, and his colleague Zacharias Jansen. There Drebbel learned lens grinding and optics, with the construction of a magic lantern, around 1604 the Drebbel family moved to England, probably at the invitation of the new king, James I of England. He was accommodated at Eltham Palace, Drebbel worked there at the masques, that were performed by and for the court. He was attached to the court of young Renaissance crown-prince Henry and he astonished the court with his inventions and his optical instruments. His fame circulated through the courts of Europe, in October 1610 Drebbel and his family moved to Prague on invitation of Emperor Rudolf II, who was preoccupied with the arts, alchemy and occult sciences. Here again Drebbel demonstrated his inventions, when in 1611 Rudolf II was stripped of all effective power by his younger brother Archduke Matthias, Drebbel was imprisoned for about a year. After Rudolfs death in 1612, Drebbel was set free and went back to London, unfortunately his patron prince Henry had also died and Drebbel was in financial trouble. He manufactured with his glass-grinding machine optical instruments and compound microscopes with two lenses, for which there was a constant demand. In 1622 Constantijn Huygens stayed as a diplomat for more one year in England. The English natural philosopher Robert Hooke may have learned the art of glass grinding from his acquaintance Johannes Sibertus Kuffler, the son-in-law of Drebbel. Towards the end of his life, in 1633, Drebbel was involved in a plan to drain the Fens around Cambridge, in keeping with traditional Mennonite practice, Drebbels estate was split between his four living children at the time of his death
15.
James VI and I
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James VI and I was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother Mary was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, in 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known after him as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617 and he was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonization of the Americas began, at 57 years and 246 days, Jamess reign in Scotland was longer than those of any of his predecessors. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. James himself was a scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie, The True Law of Free Monarchies. He sponsored the translation of the Bible that would later be named after him, Sir Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed the wisest fool in Christendom, an epithet associated with his character ever since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise Jamess reputation and treat him as a serious, James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Both Mary and Darnley were great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England through Margaret Tudor, Marys rule over Scotland was insecure, and she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, and as the eldest son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and he was baptised Charles James or James Charles on 17 December 1566 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. His godparents were Charles IX of France, Elizabeth I of England, Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as a pocky priest, spit in the childs mouth, as was then the custom. The subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs and sporting tails, Jamess father, Darnley, was murdered on 10 February 1567 at Kirk o Field, Edinburgh, perhaps in revenge for Rizzios death. James inherited his fathers titles of Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross, Mary was already unpopular, and her marriage on 15 May 1567 to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was widely suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling towards her. In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle and she was forced to abdicate on 24 July 1567 in favour of the infant James and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent. The care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, to be conserved, nursed, and upbrought in the security of Stirling Castle
16.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
17.
Siege of La Rochelle
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The Siege of La Rochelle was a result of a war between the French royal forces of Louis XIII of France and the Huguenots of La Rochelle in 1627–28. The siege marked the apex of the tensions between the Catholics and the Protestants in France, and ended with a victory for King Louis XIII. In the Edict of Nantes, Henry IV of France had given the Huguenots extensive rights, La Rochelle had become the stronghold of the French Huguenots, under its own governance. It was the centre of Huguenot seapower, and the strongest centre of resistance against the central government, La Rochelle was, at this time, the second or third largest city in France, with over 30,000 inhabitants. The assassination of Henry IV in 1610, and the advent of Louis XIII under the regency of Marie de Medici, marked a return to pro-Catholic politics and a weakening of the position of the Protestants. The Duke Henri de Rohan and his brother Soubise started to organize Protestant resistance from that time, in 1621, Louis XIII besieged and captured Saint-Jean dAngély, and a Blockade of La Rochelle was attempted in 1621-1622, ending with a stalemate and the Treaty of Montpellier. Again, Rohan and Soubise would take arms in 1625, ending with the capture of the Île de Ré in 1625 by Louis XIII. After these events, Louis XIII wished to subdue the Huguenots, the Anglo-French conflict followed the failure of the Anglo-French alliance of 1624, in which England had tried to find an ally in France against the power of the Habsburgs. In 1626, France under Richelieu actually concluded a peace with Spain. Furthermore, France was building the power of its Navy, leading the English to be convinced that France must be opposed for reasons of state. In June 1626, Walter Montagu was sent to France to contact dissident noblemen, the plan was to send an English fleet to encourage rebellion, triggering a new Huguenot revolt by Duke Henri de Rohan and his brother Soubise. On the first expedition, the English king Charles I sent a fleet of 80 ships, under his favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, to encourage a major rebellion in La Rochelle. The city of La Rochelle initially refused to declare itself an ally of Buckingham, in a state of war against the crown of France, an open alliance would only be declared in September at the time of the first fights between La Rochelle and Royal troops. Although a Protestant stronghold, Île de Ré had not directly joined the rebellion against the king, on Île de Ré, the English under Buckingham tried to take the fortified city of Saint-Martin in the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, but were repulsed after three months. Small French Royal boats managed to supply St Martin in spite of the English blockade, Buckingham ultimately ran out of money and support, and his army was weakened by diseases. After a last attack on Saint-Martin they were repulsed with heavy casualties, meanwhile, in August 1627 Royal forces started to surround La Rochelle, with an army of 7,000 soldiers,600 horses and 24 cannons, led by Charles of Angoulême. They started to reinforce fortifications at Bongraine, and at the Fort Louis, on September 10, the first cannon shots were fired by La Rochelle against Royal troops at Fort Louis, starting the third Huguenot rebellion. La Rochelle was the greatest stronghold among the Huguenot cities of France, Cardinal Richelieu acted as the commander of the besieging troops
18.
Turtle (submersible)
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Turtle was the worlds first submersible with a documented record of use in combat. She was built in Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 1775 by American David Bushnell as a means of attaching explosive charges to ships in a harbor, Bushnell designed her for use against British Royal Navy vessels occupying North American harbors during the American Revolutionary War. Several attempts were made using Turtle to affix explosives to the undersides of British warships in New York Harbor in 1776, all failed, and her transport ship was sunk later that year by the British with the submarine aboard. Bushnell claimed eventually to have recovered the machine, but its fate is unknown. In the early 1770s, David Bushnell, a Yale College freshman and Patriot, by 1775, with tensions on the rise between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain, Bushnell had practically perfected these explosives. That year he began work near Old Saybrook, Connecticut on a small manned submersible craft capable of affixing such a charge to the hull of a ship. The charge would then be detonated by a mechanism that released a musket firing mechanism, probably a flintlock. According to Dr. Benjamin Gale, a doctor who taught at Yale and it dived by allowing water into a bilge tank at the bottom of the vessel and ascended by pushing water out through a hand pump. It was propelled vertically and horizontally by hand-cranked propellers and it also had 200 pounds of lead aboard, which could be released in a moment to increase buoyancy. Manned and operated by one person, the vessel contained enough air for thirty minutes and had a speed in calm water of about 3 mph. Six small pieces of glass in the top of the submarine provided natural light. The internal instruments had small pieces of bioluminescent foxfire affixed to the needles to indicate their position in the dark, during trials in November 1775, Bushnell discovered that this illumination failed when the temperature dropped too low. Although repeated requests were made to Benjamin Franklin for possible alternatives, none was forthcoming, Bushnells basic design included some elements present in earlier experimental submersibles. Bushnells work began to more attention in August 1775, when Franklin was informed of it. Despite Bushnells insistence on secrecy surrounding his work, news of it made its way to the British. On November 16,1775, a message to William Tryon. The details of the report were highly inaccurate, implying Turtle was nearly ready to be deployed in Boston harbor against the fleet that was part of the British siege effort there, in fact, Bushnell and his brother Ezra were still testing the machine in the Connecticut River. In the spring of 1776, after the British withdrew from Boston, Washington agreed, and provided some funding to the inventor to prepare the vessel for deployment
19.
HMS Eagle (1774)
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HMS Eagle was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 2 May 1774 at Rotherhithe. This ship was commanded by Richard Howe, when Lee attempted another spot in the hull, he lost the ship, and eventually abandoned the attempt. British naval historian Richard Compton-Hall stated that the problems of achieving neutral buoyancy would have rendered the vertical propeller useless, there is no record of the Royal Navy recording an attack. Eagle went on to part in the Battle of Cuddalore in 1783. Eagle was on service from 1790, and was broken up in 1812
20.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
21.
War of 1812
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Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the wars end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved, the view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr. Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies, the war was fought in three theatres. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U. S. –Canadian frontier, Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, early victories over poorly-led U. S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U. S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britains Native American allies, both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. This brought an Era of Good Feelings in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism, the war was also a major turning point in the development of the U. S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U. S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spains Mobile District, the government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812. This section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States, as Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also vindication of American identity. Americans at the time and historians since often called it the United States Second War of Independence, in 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via a series of Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, with which Britain was at war. The United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law, the American merchant marine had come close to doubling between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton, the British public and press were resentful of the growing mercantile and commercial competition. The United States view was that Britains restrictions violated its right to trade with others, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man. The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become U. S. citizens and this meant that in addition to recovering naval deserters, it considered any United States citizens who were born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the reluctance of the United States to issue formal naturalization papers and it was estimated by the Admiralty that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors on United States ships in 1805
22.
New London, Connecticut
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New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States. It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, for several decades beginning in the early 19th century, New London was one of the worlds three busiest whaling ports, along with Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts. The wealth that whaling brought into the city furnished the capital to fund much of the present architecture. New London subsequently became home to shipping and manufacturing industries. New London is now known in Connecticut for its wealth of art. The city is home to the United States Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut College, Mitchell College, the Coast Guard Station New London and New London Harbor is home port to the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Chinook and the Coast Guards tall ship Eagle. New London had a population of 27,620 at the 2010 census, the Norwich-New London metropolitan area includes twenty-one towns and 274,055 people. The area was called Nameaug by the Pequot Indians, John Winthrop, Jr. founded the first English settlement here in 1646, making it about the 13th town settled in Connecticut. Inhabitants informally referred to it as Nameaug or as Pequot after the tribe, in the 1650s, the colonists wanted to give the town the official name of London after London, England, but the Connecticut General Assembly wanted to name it Faire Harbour. The citizens protested, declaring that they would prefer it to be called Nameaug if it couldnt be officially named London, the legislature relented, and the town was officially named New London on March 10,1658. The harbor was considered to be the best deep water harbor on Long Island Sound, famous New Londoners during the American Revolution include Nathan Hale, William Coit, Richard Douglass, Thomas & Nathaniel Shaw, Gen. Samuel Parsons, printer Timothy Green, and Samuel Seabury. It is often noted that this raid on New London and Groton was intended to divert General Washington, the main defensive fort for New London was Fort Griswold, located across the Thames River in Groton. It was well known to Arnold, who sold its secrets to the British fleet so that they could avoid its artillery fire, after overrunning New Londons Fort Trumbull, Ft. All told, more than 52 British soldiers and 83 militia were killed, New London suffered over 6 militia killed and 24 wounded, while Arnold and the British and Hessian raiding party suffered an equal amount. Connecticuts independent legislature made New London one of the first two cities brought from de facto to formalized incorporations in its January session of 1784, along with New Haven, during the War of 1812, torpedoes were employed in attempts to destroy British vessels and protect American harbors. In fact, a torpedo was used in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New Londons harbor. Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any boat in this cruel and unheard-of warfare. For several decades beginning in the early 19th century, New London was one of the three busiest whaling ports in the world, along with Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts
23.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
24.
Crimean War
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The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, the French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. While the churches eventually worked out their differences and came to an agreement, Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas issued an ultimatum that the Orthodox subjects of the Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise that Nicholas agreed to, when the Ottomans demanded changes, Nicholas refused and prepared for war. Having obtained promises of support from France and Britain, the Ottomans declared war on Russia in October 1853. The war started in the Balkans, when Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities, until then under Ottoman suzerainty and now part of modern Romania, led by Omar Pasha, the Ottomans fought a strong defensive campaign and stopped the advance at Silistra. A separate action on the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia led to a siege. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, France and Britain rushed forces to Gallipoli and they then moved north to Varna in June, arriving just in time for the Russians to abandon Silistra. Aside from a skirmish at Köstence, there was little for the allies to do. Karl Marx quipped that there they are, the French doing nothing, after extended preparations, the forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and fought their way to a point south of Sevastopol after a series of successful battles. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, a second counterattack, ordered personally by Nicholas, was defeated by Omar Pasha. The front settled into a siege and led to conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller actions were carried out in the Baltic, the Caucasus, Sevastopol fell after eleven months, and neutral countries began to join the Allied cause. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion from the west if the war continued and this was welcomed by France and Britain, as their subjects were beginning to turn against their governments as the war dragged on. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, Russia was forbidden from hosting warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent, Christians there were granted a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways
25.
Gulf of Finland
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The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it, other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn. The eastern parts of the Gulf of Finland belong to Russia, as the seaway to Saint Petersburg, the Gulf of Finland has been and continues to be of considerable strategic importance to Russia. Some of the problems affecting the Baltic Sea are at their most pronounced in the shallow gulf. The area of the gulf is 30,000 km2, the length is 400 km and the width varies from 70 km near the entrance to 130 km on the meridian of Moshchny Island, in the Neva Bay, it decreases to 12 km. The gulf is shallow with the depth decreasing from the entrance to the gulf to the continent. The sharpest change occurs near Narva-Jõesuu, which is why this place is called Narva wall, the average depth is 38 m with the maximum of 100 m. The depth of the Neva Bay is less than 6 metres, therefore, a channel was dug at the bottom for safe navigation. Because of the influx of fresh water from rivers, especially from the Neva River. The average water temperature is close to 0 °C in winter, in summer, it is 15–17 °C at the surface, the gulf is usually frozen from late November to late April, the freezing starts in the east and gradually proceeds to the west. Complete freezing is usually reached by late January, and it not occur in mild winters. There are frequent strong winds causing waves, surges of water. The northern coast of the gulf is high and winding, with abundant small bays and skerries only a few large bays, the coast is mostly sloping, there are abundant sandy dunes, with occasional pine trees. The southern shores are smooth and shallow, but along the entire coast runs the Baltic Klint with the height up to 55 m, in the east, the gulf ends with Neva Bay and on the west merges with the Baltic Sea. The gulf contains numerous banks, skerries and islands, starting from 1700, nineteen artificial islands with fortresses were built in the gulf by Russia. Their purpose was defense from attacks from water and their construction was urged by the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 and those include Fort Alexander, Krasnaya Gorka, Ino, Totleben, Kronshlot and others. The largest rivers flowing into the gulf are Neva, Narva, keila, Pirita, Jägala, Kunda, Luga, Sista and Kovashi flow into the gulf from the south. From the north flow Sestra River, Porvoo, Vantaa and several small rivers
26.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
27.
Carboy
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A carboy, demijohn, or jimmyjohn is a rigid container with a typical capacity of 20 to 60 litres. Carboys are primarily used for transporting liquids, often water or chemicals and they are also used for in-home fermentation of beverages, often beer or wine. The word carboy is from the Persian qarābah, from Arabic qarrāba, demijohn is an old word that formerly referred to any glass vessel with a large body and small neck, enclosed in wickerwork. The word may derive from the name of a Persian town, Damghan, according to The Oxford English Dictionary the word comes from the French dame-jeanne, literally Lady Jane, as a popular appellation. This is in accordance with the evidence at present known, since the word occurred initially in France in the 17th century. Carboys come in various volumes ranging from 4 to 25 L, the term carboy itself usually refers to a 19 L carboy, unless otherwise noted. A4.5 L carboy is usually called a jug, a 57 L carboy is usually called a demijohn In Britain, demijohn refers to a 4.5 litre glass brewing vessel. Containers of this type in the United States have no volume and are called jimmyjohns. In brewing, a carboy or demijohn is a glass or plastic used in fermenting beverages such as wine, mead, cider, perry. Usually it is fitted with a stopper and a fermentation lock to prevent bacteria. During the homebrewing process, a primary carboy is used for fermentation, once primary fermentation is complete, the beer is either transferred to a secondary carboy for conditioning or it can be transferred directly to bottles for conditioning. Polypropylene carboys are also used in laboratories to transfer purified water. They are typically filled at the top and have a spigot at the bottom for dispensing and they are used to store large quantities of liquids, such as solvents or deionised water. In these applications, a tap may be included for dispensing, Carboys are also used to collect and store waste solvents. Collecting waste solvents in plastic carboys is preferable to reusing glass Winchesters due to the chance of breakage if a solution is placed in an incorrectly labeled carboy. Fermentation Jerrycan - another large-sized fluid container Big Bottles Big History, Demijohns and Carboys
28.
USS Cairo
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USS Cairo /ˈkeɪroʊ/ was one of the first American ironclad warships built at the beginning of the U. S. Civil War. Cairo was the ship of the City-class gunboats and named for Cairo. In June 1862, she captured the Confederate garrison of Fort Pillow on the Mississippi, as part of the Yazoo Pass Expedition, she was sunk on 12 December 1862, while clearing mines for the attack on Haines Bluff. Cairo was the first ship ever to be sunk by a remotely detonated by hand. The remains of Cairo can be viewed at Vicksburg National Military Park with a museum of its weapons, Cairo was built by James Eads and Co. Mound City, Illinois, in 1861, by contract to the United States Department of War. She was commissioned as part of the Union Armys Western Gunboat Flotilla, Cairo served with the Armys Western Gunboat Flotilla on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and their tributaries until she was transferred to the Navy on 1 October 1862, with the other river gunboats. She was commanded by Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote, on 6 June 1862, two days later, Cairo joined in the triumph of seven Union ships and a tug over eight Confederate gunboats off Memphis. Five of the gunboats were sunk or run ashore during this action. That night, Union forces occupied the city, Cairo returned to patrol on the Mississippi until 21 November, when she joined the Yazoo Pass Expedition. Like many of the Mississippi theatre ironclads, Cairo had her armament changed over the life of the vessel. To speed up her entrance into the service, Cairo and the other City-class ships were fitted with weapons were on hand. Though the 8 in smoothbore Dahlgren guns were modern, most of the other original weapons were antiquated, such as the 32-pounders, or modified. These were, old smoothbores that had made into rifles. The 42-pounder weapons were of concern to military commanders because they were structurally weaker. Additionally, the confines of combat on the rivers greatly increased the threat of boarding parties. The 12-pounder howitzer was equipped to address that concern and was not used in regular combat, over the years, the gunboat was forgotten and slowly covered by silt and sand. Impacted in mud, Cairo became a time capsule in which her unique, historical artifacts were preserved against corrosion and her whereabouts became a matter of speculation, as members of the crew had died and local residents were unsure of the location
29.
Spar torpedo
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A spar torpedo is a weapon consisting of a bomb placed at the end of a long pole, or spar, and attached to a boat. The weapon is used by running the end of the spar into the enemy ship, spar torpedoes were often equipped with a barbed spear at the end, so it would stick to wooden hulls. A fuse could then be used to detonate it, the spar torpedo was invented during the American Civil War by E. C. Singer, an engineer who worked on secret projects for the benefit of the Confederate States of America. Singers torpedo was detonated by means of a mechanism adapted from a rifle lock. The spring-loaded trigger was detonated by means of a cord attached to the attacking vessel. The attacking vessel rammed its target, embedding the barbed torpedo in its hull, when the attacker reached the limit of the trigger cord, the torpedo was detonated. The most famous use of a torpedo was on the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley. Spar torpedoes were used on the David-class of semi-submersible attack boats. At night on October 27–28,1864, Lieutenant Cushing employed a spar torpedo to sink the Confederate ironclad ram CSS Albemarle, the sinking of the Albemarle was the Union navys only successful sinking of a Confederate vessel by torpedo. Lieutenant Cushing employed a spar torpedo designed by John Lay, the innovative semi-submersible 1864 Union craft USS Spuyten Duyvil employed a spar torpedo, but not with a barbed attachment to the target. Owing to an innovative directable and extensible spar, this craft could release a slightly buoyant mine underneath the target, spar torpedoes were also used on small wooden launches in the late 19th century, although they were not very useful weapons. The locomotive torpedo replaced the torpedo as a weapon for submarines. Spar torpedoes were used by Romanian forces during the countrys war of independence. On May 26,1877, the craft Rândunica sank the Ottoman river monitor Seyfi on the Danube
30.
Confederate States Navy
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The Navy of the Confederate States was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate Congress on February 21,1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War, the Confederate navy could never achieve numerical equality with the U. S. Navy, so it used technological innovation, such as ironclads, submarines, torpedo boats, and naval mines to gain advantage. In February 1861 the Confederate Navy had 30 vessels, only 14 of which were seaworthy, the Union Navy had 90 vessels. The C. S. Navy eventually grew to 101 ships to meet the rise in naval threats and conflicts, on April 20,1861 the U. S. was forced to quickly abandon the important Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia. In their haste they failed to burn the facility with its large depots of arms and other supplies. As a result, the Confederacy captured much needed war materials, including cannon, gunpowder, shot. Of most importance to the Confederacy was the dry docks. The Confederacys only substantial navy yard with at time was in Pensacola, Florida. The most significant warship left at the Yard was the screw frigate USS Merrimack, the U. S. Navy had torched Merrimacks superstructure and upper deck, then scuttled the vessel, it would have been immediately useful as a warship to their enemy. Little of the structure remained other than the hull, which was holed by the scuttling charge. Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory had the idea to raise Merrimack, when the hull was raised, it had not been submerged long enough to have been rendered unusable, the steam engines and essential machinery were salvageable. The decks were rebuilt using thick oak and pine planking, the newly rebuilt superstructure was unusual, above the waterline the sides sloped inward and were covered with two layers of heavy iron-plate armor. The vessel was a new kind of warship, an all-steam powered iron-clad, in the centuries-old tradition of reusing captured ships, the new ship was christened CSS Virginia. She later fought the Unions new ironclad USS Monitor, on the second day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the two ships met and each scored numerous hits on the other. After four hours both ships were taking in water through split seams and breaches by enemy shot, the engines of both were becoming dangerously overtaxed, and their crews were near exhaustion. The two ships turned and steamed away, never to meet again, the last Confederate surrender took place in Liverpool, United Kingdom on November 6,1865 aboard the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah when her flag was lowered for the final time. This surrender brought about the end of the Confederate navy, the Shenandoah had circumnavigated the globe, the only Confederate ship to do so. The act of the Confederate Congress that created the Confederate Navy on February 21,1861 also appointed Stephen Mallory as Secretary of the Department of the Navy
31.
H. L. Hunley (submarine)
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The H. L. Hunley was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. The Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare, the Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of the Hunley during her short career. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, the Hunley, nearly 40 feet long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on August 12,1863, to Charleston, the Hunley sank on August 29,1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on October 15,1863, killing all eight of her crew, including Horace Hunley himself. Both times the Hunley was raised and returned to service, on February 17,1864, The Hunley attacked and sank the 1240-short ton screw sloop USS Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charlestons outer harbor. Soon afterwards, the Hunley sank, killing all eight of her third crew and this time, the ship was lost. Finally located in 1995, the Hunley was raised in 2000 and is on display in North Charleston, South Carolina, Hunley and two earlier submarines were privately developed and paid for by Horace Lawson Hunley, James McClintock, and Baxter Watson. While the United States Navy was constructing its first submarine, the USS Alligator, in late 1861, Hunley, McClintock, and Watson first built a small submarine named Pioneer in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Pioneer was tested in February 1862 in the Mississippi River and was towed to Lake Pontchartrain for additional trials. But the Union advance towards New Orleans caused the men to abandon development, the poorly documented Bayou St. John Confederate submarine may have been constructed about the same time as the Pioneer. The three inventors moved to Mobile and joined with machinists Thomas Park and Thomas Lyons and they soon began development of a second submarine, the American Diver. Their efforts were supported by the Confederate States Army, Lieutenant William Alexander of the 21st Alabama Infantry Regiment was assigned to oversee the project. The builders experimented with electric and steam propulsion for the new submarine, the American Diver was ready for harbor trials by January 1863, but she proved too slow to be practical. One attempted attack on the Union blockade was made in February 1863, the submarine sank in the mouth of Mobile Bay during a storm later that month and was not recovered. Construction of the Hunley began soon after the loss of the American Diver, at this stage, the Hunley was variously referred to as the fish boat, the fish torpedo boat, or the porpoise. Legend held that the Hunley was made from a steam boiler — perhaps because a cutaway drawing by William Alexander. In fact, the Hunley was designed and built for her role, skerretts 1902 drawing is an accurate representation
32.
USS Housatonic (1861)
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The first USS Housatonic was a screw sloop-of-war of the United States Navy. Named for the Housatonic River of New England, Housatonic was the first ship to be sunk by a submarine, Housatonic was one of four sister ships which included USS Adirondack, USS Ossipee, and USS Juniata. Housatonic departed Boston on 11 September and arrived at Charleston, South Carolina and she took station outside the bar. On 29 January 1863, her boats, aided by those of USS Augusta, USS G. W. Blunt and these imports were of such great potential value to the South that they have been called the wars most important single cargo of contraband. They rammed Mercedita, forcing her to strike her colors in a sinking and perfectly defenseless condition, gunfire from the rams also damaged Quaker City and Augusta before the Confederate ships withdrew under fire from Housatonic to the protection of shore batteries. On 19 March 1863, Housatonic and Wissahickon, responding to signal flares sent up by America, chased the 407 ton iron-hulled blockade runner SS Georgiana ashore on Long Island, the Georgianas cargo of munitions, medicine and merchandise was then valued at over $1,000,000. The Georgiana was described in dispatches and newspaper accounts as more powerful than the Confederate cruisers Alabama, Shenandoah. This was a serious and very important blow to the Confederacy, the wreck of the Georgiana was discovered by pioneer underwater archaeologist Lee Spence in 1965. Housatonic captured the sloop Neptune on 19 April as she attempted to run out of Charleston with a cargo of cotton and she was credited with assisting in the capture of the steamer Seesh on 15 May. Howitzers mounted in Housatonics boats joined in the attack on Fort Wagner on 10 July, at just before 9PM,17 February 1864, Housatonic, commanded by Charles Pickering, was maintaining her station in the blockade outside the bar. Robert F. Flemming, Jr. a black landsman, first sighted an object in the water 100 yards off and it had the appearance of a plank moving in the water, Pickering later reported. Although the chain was slipped, the engine backed, and all hands were called to quarters, two officers and three men in Housatonic died. The wreck of Housatonic was largely scrapped in the 1870s–1890s and her location was removed from coastal navigation charts. The anchor of Housatonic can be found at the office of Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms, list of sailing frigates of the United States Navy Bibliography of early American naval history This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here
33.
Rear admiral
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Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the admiral ranks, in many navies it is referred to as a two-star rank. It originated from the days of naval sailing squadrons and can trace its origins to the Royal Navy, each naval squadron would be assigned an admiral as its head, who would command from the centre vessel and direct the activities of the squadron. The admiral would in turn be assisted by a vice admiral and this has survived into the modern age, with the rank of rear admiral the most-junior of the admiralty ranks of many navies. In some European navies, and in the Canadian Forces French rank translations, in the German Navy the rank is known as Konteradmiral, superior to the flotilla admiral. In the Royal Netherlands Navy, this rank is known as schout-bij-nacht, denoting the role junior to the squadron admiral, the Royal Australian Navy maintains a rank of rear admiral, refer to Australian Defence Force ranks and insignia. Since the mid-1990s, the insignia of a Royal Australian Navy rear admiral is the Crown of St. Edward above a crossed sword and baton, like the Royal Navy version, the sword is a traditional naval cutlass. The stars have eight points, unlike the four pointed Order of the Bath stars used by the army, prior to 1995, the RAN shoulder board was identical to the Royal Navy shoulder board. The Royal Navy shoulder board changed again in 2001 and the Australian, rear Admiral Robyn Walker AM, RAN became the first female admiral in the Royal Australian Navy when she was appointed Surgeon-General of the Australian Defence Force on 16 December 2011. In the Royal Canadian Navy, the rank of rear-admiral is the Navy rank equivalent to major-general of the Army, a rear-admiral is a flag officer, the naval equivalent of a general officer. A rear-admiral is senior to a commodore and brigadier-general, and junior to a vice-admiral and lieutenant-general, the service dress features a wide strip of gold braid around the cuff and, since June 2010, above it a narrower strip of gold braid embellished with the executive curl. On the visor of the cap are two rows of gold oak leaves. Konteradmiral is an OF-7 two-star rank equivalent to the Generalmajor in the German Army, see also The Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard is the naval component of the Military of Guyana. As such, the ranks of the Coast Guard are naval ranks similar to the practice in the respective Coast Guards of Jamaica and Trinidad, the rank of rear admiral was first awarded to chief of staff commodore Gary Best on August 19,2013. The rank insignia consists of two silver pips with green highlights, beneath a crossed sword and baton, all surmounted by the gold-colored Caciques crown with red, the Indian Navy also maintains a rear admiral rank senior to commodore and captain ranks and junior to vice admiral ranks. The rank insignia for a rear-admiral is two stars beneath crossed sword and baton, all surmounted by Emblem of India, worn on shoulder boards, before Islamic Revolution The Iranian Imperial Navy. After Islamic Revolution The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, also known as the Iranian Navy, a rear admiral in the Pakistani Navy is a senior and two-star rank naval officer, appointed in higher naval commands. Like most Commonwealth navies, the rear admiral rank is superior to commodore, however, the rank is junior to the three-star rank vice-admiral and four-star rank admiral, who is generally a Chief of Naval Staff of the Navy
34.
David Farragut
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David Glasgow Farragut /ˈfærəɡət/ was a flag officer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He was the first rear admiral, vice admiral, and admiral in the United States Navy and he is remembered for his order at the Battle of Mobile Bay usually paraphrased as Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead in U. S. Navy tradition. Farragut was born in 1801 to Jordi Farragut, a native of Minorca, Spain and it was a few miles southeast of Campbells Station, near Knoxville. His father operated the ferry and also served as a officer in the Tennessee militia. Jordi Farragut, son of Antoni Farragut and Joana Mesquida, became a Spanish merchant captain from Minorca and he joined the American Revolutionary cause after arriving in America in 1766, when he changed his first name to George. George was a lieutenant during the Revolutionary War, serving first with the South Carolina Navy then the Continental Naval forces. George and Elizabeth had moved west to Tennessee after his service in the American Revolution, in 1805, George Farragut accepted a position at the U. S. port of New Orleans. He traveled there first and his family followed, in a 1, 700-mile flatboat adventure aided by hired rivermen, the family was still living in New Orleans when Elizabeth died of yellow fever. His father made plans to place the children with friends. In 1808, after his mothers death, he agreed to live with David Porter, in 1812, James adopted the name David in honor of his foster father, with whom he went to sea late in 1810. David Farragut grew up in a family, as the foster brother of future Civil War admiral, David Dixon Porter. David Farraguts naval career began as a midshipman when he was nine years old and this included service in several wars, most notably during the American Civil War, where he gained fame for winning several decisive naval battles. Through the influence of his father, Farragut was commissioned a midshipman in the United States Navy on December 17,1810. A prize master by the age of 12, Farragut fought in the War of 1812, at the same time, the Americans battled the hostile tribes on the islands with the help of their Te Ii allies. Farragut was 12 years old when, during the War of 1812 and he was wounded and captured while serving on the Essex during the engagement at Valparaíso Bay, Chile, against the British on March 28,1814. Farragut was promoted to lieutenant in 1822, during the operations against West Indian pirates, in 1824, he was placed in command of USS Ferret, which was his first command of a U. S. naval vessel. He served in the Mosquito Fleet, a fleet of ships fitted out to fight pirates in the Caribbean Sea. On February 14,1823, the fleet set sail for the West Indies where, for the six months, they would drive the pirates off the sea
35.
Battle of Mobile Bay
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This was followed by a reduction of the Confederate fleet to a single vessel, ironclad CSS Tennessee. Tennessee did not then retire, but engaged the entire Northern fleet, Tennessees armor enabled her to inflict more injury than she received, but she could not overcome the imbalance in numbers. She was eventually reduced to a hulk and surrendered, ending the battle. With no Navy to support them, the three forts also surrendered within days, complete control of lower Mobile Bay thus passed to the Union forces. Mobile is situated near the head of Mobile Bay, a natural harbor formed where the Mobile, the bay is about 33 mi long, the lower bay is about 23 mi at its greatest width. It is deep enough to accommodate ocean-going vessels in the lower half without dredging, above the mouth of Dog River the water becomes shoal, so deep-draft vessels could not approach the city. The mouth of the bay is marked on the east by a narrow peninsula of sand, Mobile Point, that separates Bon Secour Bay. The point ends at the channel into Mobile Bay. Across the entrance, the line of the peninsula is continued in a series of barrier islands, northwest of Dauphin Island is Little Dauphin Island, then a series of minor islands that are interrupted by a secondary entrance to the bay, Grants Pass. A few other islands and shoals lie to the south of Dauphin Island. Rather early in the war, the Confederate government decided not to defend its entire coast, following the loss of New Orleans in April 1862, Mobile was the only major port on the eastern gulf that would be defended. The city subsequently became the center for blockade running on the gulf, most of the trade between the Confederacy and Havana and other Caribbean ports passed through Mobile. A few attempts were mounted to break the blockade, but they were not large enough to have lasting impact, although the orders given to Flag Officer David G. Given respite by the Union strategy, the Confederate Army improved the defenses of Mobile Bay by strengthening Fort Morgan, in addition, they set up Fort Powell, a smaller work that guarded the Grants Pass channel. Grants Pass was also obstructed by a set of piles and other impediments, Mobile and Mobile Bay were within the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana, led by Major General Dabney H. Maury. Local command was entrusted to Brigadier General Richard L. Page, the primary contribution of the Confederate Army to the defense of Mobile Bay was the three forts. Fort Morgan was a structure dating from 1834. The fort mounted 46 guns, of which 11 were rifled, across the main channel from Fort Morgan on Dauphin Island was Fort Gaines, containing 26 guns, and with a garrison of about 600
36.
Mobile, Alabama
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Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. Alabamas only saltwater port, Mobile is located at the head of the Mobile Bay, Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area. This region of 412,992 residents is composed solely of Mobile County, Mobile is the largest city in the Mobile-Daphne−Fairhope CSA, with a total population of 604,726, the second largest in the state. As of 2011, the population within a 60-mile radius of Mobile is 1,262,907, Mobile began as the first capital of colonial French Louisiana in 1702. During its first 100 years, Mobile was a colony of France, then Britain, Mobile first became a part of the United States of America in 1813, with the annexation of West Florida under President James Madison. In 1861 Alabama joined the Confederate States of America, which surrendered in 1865, Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Carnival celebrations in the United States. The festival began to be celebrated in the first decade of the 18th century by its first French Catholic colonial settlers. Mobile was host to the first formally organized Carnival mystic society, known elsewhere as a krewe, to celebrate with a parade in the United States, in 2005 the first integrated mystic society had a parade for Mardi Gras. The city gained its name from the Mobile tribe that the French colonists encountered living in the area of Mobile Bay. The Mobile tribe, along with the Tohomé, obtained permission from the colonists, about seven years after the founding of the Mobile settlement, to settle near the fort. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne dIberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobiles Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20,1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, the parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony, though most of the Pélican girls recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and died. This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first African slaves, the population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet descending to 178 persons two years later due to disease. A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time, by 1712, when Antoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons. The capital of La Louisiane was moved in 1720 to Biloxi, leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years War, by this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain
37.
Romanian War of Independence
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The mobilization began, and about 120,000 soldiers were massed in the south of the country to defend against an eventual attack of the Ottoman forces from south of the Danube. On April 241877, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, on May 211877, in the Romanian parliament, Mihail Kogălniceanu read the act of independence of Romania as the will of the Romanian people. A day later, on May 221877, the act was signed by Prince Carol I, the Romanian government immediately canceled paying tribute to Turkey, and the sum was given instead to the War Ministry. Due to great losses, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the Russian commander-in-chief, asked Prince Carol I for the Romanian Army to intervene, after the occupation of Plevna, the Romanian Army returned to the Danube and won the battles of Vidin and Smârdan. On 19 January 1878, the Ottoman Empire requested an armistice, Romania won the war but at a cost of more than 10,000 casualties. Its independence from the Porte was finally recognised on 13 July 1878, the Romanian Navy consisted of three gunboats, Ştefan cel Mare, România and Fulgerul and one spar torpedo boat, Rândunica. The three gunboats displaced 352,130 and 85 tons respectively, Ştefan cel Mare and România were each armed with four guns and Fulgerul with one gun. Despite its inferiority on paper, the Romanian Navy destroyed many Turkish river gunboats and this was also the first instance in history when a torpedo craft sank its target without also sinking. Another river monitor, the Podgoriçe, was shelled and sunk by Romanian coastal artillery on 7 November 1877. After being refitted and modernized at the Galați shipyard in 1900 and having her displacement increased to 10 tons, the peace treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was signed at San Stefano, on 3 March 1878. It created a Bulgarian principality and recognized the independence of Serbia, Montenegro, some in Romania claim that Russia did not keep its promises of the 4 April 1877 treaty (signed by the Russian consul Stuart Dimitri to respect Romanias territorial integrity. National awakening of Romania Kingdom of Romania Great Eastern Crisis The Plevna Delay by Richard T. Trenk, the Romanian Army of the Russo-Turkish War 1877-78 Grivitsa Romanian Mausoleum in Bulgaria Russo-Turkish Wars at Classic Encyclopedia based on the Encyclopædia Britannica
38.
River monitor
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River monitors are military craft designed to patrol rivers. They are normally the largest of all warships in river flotillas. The name originated from the US Navys USS Monitor, which made her first appearance in the American Civil War, and being distinguished by the use of revolving gun turrets. On 18 December 1965, the US Navy, for the time in one hundred years. In July 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara authorized the formation of a Mobile Riverine Force, River monitors were used on inland waterways such as rivers, estuaries, deltas and lakes. Usually they had a draft which was necessary for them to be able to operate in enclosed waters. Most river monitors were lightly armored although this varied, with some carrying more armor, typically, however, river monitors displayed a mixture of gun sizes from 3-inch to 6-inch, plus machine guns. This type of vessel overlaps with the river gunboat and they were up to 1,000 tons displacement, armed with 130 mm guns. Some of these Russian monitors, such as the recommissioned Sverdlov, were still in use by the Soviet Navy in the 1945 Soviet invasion of Manchuria, referred to as River Battleships by their men, they provided the firepower of the Brown-water navy. On the Danube, river monitors were employed during World War I by Austria-Hungary, another river monitor, Körös, was also heavily damaged by Romanian artillery, taking 12 hits and ran aground after her steam lines were severed. On 22 September 1917, the Enns-class river monitor Inn was sunk by a Romanian mine near Brăila and she was refloated but her repairs were not completed before the War ended, and she was eventually handed over to Romania as war reparation, being renamed Basarabia. They were built in sections at Triest in Austria-Hungary, transported to Romania by rail, during the Interwar period, the Romanian Danube Flotilla was the most powerful riverine fleet in the world. In 1924, the Romanian river monitors helped suppress the Tatarbunary uprising, along with the entire Romanian Danube Flotilla, in 1944, the Romanian river monitors were captured by the Soviets and commissioned as the Azov-class. Czechoslovakia had one monitor, the President Masaryk, of about 200 tons displacement and she was captured by the Germans in 1939 and commissioned as Bechelaren. She was capitally rebuilt in 1943 and her armament was modified in February 1945. She supported German troops during Operation Spring Awakening and later fought in Austria, yugoslav river monitors were former Austro-Hungarian warships received as reparations. They were renamed Vardar, Sava, Drava and Morava, after the fall of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Morava and Sava were commissioned by the newly created Independent State of Croatia. Smaller monitors were used by Poland in 1939 on the Pripyat River and by the Soviet Union in 1941 on the Pripyat, the Soviet Union also had five Zheleznyakov class monitors of 263 tons, which served with the Danube Flotilla and Dnieper Flotilla in World War II
39.
Robert Whitehead
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Robert Whitehead was an English engineer, most famous for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo. He was born in Bolton, England, the son of James Whitehead, a cotton-bleacher and he trained as an engineer and draughtsman, and attended the Mechanics Institute in Manchester. His first professional employment was at a shipyard in Toulon, France, for Philip Taylor & Sons and he then moved to Trieste, on the Adriatic coast of Austria. Whiteheads work in Trieste was noticed by the owners of Fonderia Metalli, in 1856, Whitehead became manager of the company, and changed its name to Stabilimento Tecnico di Fiume. STF produced marine steam boilers and engines, which were the most modern products of that era, the Austrian Navy was a customer. In the early 1860s, Whitehead met engineer Giovanni Luppis, who had retired to Trieste from the Austrian Navy. Luppis had produced the first prototypes of a torpedo in 1860. Luppis device was a surface boat, propelled by compressed air. Whitehead and Luppis formed a partnership to perfect the torpedo as an effective weapon, Whiteheads initial torpedo experiments were conducted with the help of his 12-year-old son, John, and a workman, Annibale Ploech. They discarded Luppis concept of launch and control for an unguided weapon launched from a ship on a straight line at the target which became known as the Whitehead torpedo. This resulted in Minenschiff, the first self-propelled torpedo, officially presented to the Austrian Imperial Naval commission on 21 December 1866, the commission was impressed and the Austrian gunboat Gemse was adapted for launching torpedoes at the Schiavon shipyard in Fiume. The ship was equipped with a barrel, which was Whiteheads invention. More than 50 launch trials were performed in front of the factory, gemses commander, Frigate Lieutenant Count Georg Anton von Hoyos, later married Whiteheads daughter Alice. By 1870, Whitehead had managed to increase the speed to 7 knots. The torpedo was driven by a reciprocating engine run by compressed air. Whitehead added two important features to the torpedo, A self-regulating device that kept the torpedo at a constant preset depth and this consisted of a hydrostatic valve and pendulum balance, connected to a horizontal rudder, which controlled the running depth. Gyroscopic stabilisation to fix the torpedos direction, in 1898, Whitehead purchased the newly invented gyroscope mechanism from Ludwig Obry, who was also a naval officer. Whitehead fiercely guarded his trade secrets, employees were sworn to secrecy about the guidance mechanisms employed in his torpedoes
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Destroyer
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Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations, typically a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, the advent of the missile allowed destroyers to take on the surface combatant roles previously filled by battleships. This resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation, the emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy an enemy battle fleet using steam launches to launch torpedoes. Fast boats armed with torpedoes were built and called torpedo boats, the first seagoing vessel designed to fire the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton HMS Lightning in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons, these were replaced in 1879 by a torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, in response to this new threat, more heavily gunned picket boats called catchers were built which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea. The anti-torpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Dutch and, up until the Second World War, Polish. At that time, and even into World War I, the function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future, an important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884, later redesignated TB81. This was a torpedo boat with four 47 mm quick-firing guns. At 23.75 knots, while still not fast enough to engage torpedo boats reliably. Another forerunner of the torpedo boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat Kotaka, designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the London Yarrow shipyards in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The 165-foot long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached 19 knots, in her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, and was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas. The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for the Kotaka, the first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat. Essentially very small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes, by the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers, which were much faster. The first example of this was HMS Rattlesnake, designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, the gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. Exactly 200 feet long and 23 feet in beam, she displaced 550 tons, built of steel, Rattlesnake was un-armoured with the exception of a 3⁄4-inch protective deck
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Giovanni Luppis
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Giovanni Biagio Luppis von Rammer, sometimes also known by the Croatian name of Vukić, was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy who developed the first prototypes of the self-propelled torpedo. Giovanni Luppis was born in the potato farm Rijeka in 1813, which was at the part of the Illyrian Provinces. His parents were Ferdinando Carlo, nobleman of Poreč and Vis, in the city of Rijeka, Giovanni Luppiss family has been powerful shipowners. Lupis attended a gymnasium in Rijeka and the Collegio di marina, then he married a noblewoman, the Baroness Elisa de Zotti. He served in the Venezianisch-Österreichische Kriegsmarine and rose up the ranks to the position of Frigate Captain, in 1848/1849 he was an officer on the ships that blocked Venice. Upon his death, before he had perfected his invention or made it public and he envisioned a floating device for destroying ships that would be unmanned and controlled from land, while the explosive charges would detonate at the moment of impact. His first prototype was one long, had glass wings. It didnt succeed due to primitive implementation, the second model was built with a clock mechanism as the engine for the propeller. The explosives were in the stern and were ignited through a control, which in turn was activated through the bow. It had two rudders, one turned to the right, the other to the left, that were moved by ropes/wires from land, after numerous experiments, this design, marked 6 m, finally performed well enough. He nicknamed it Salvacoste, Italian for Coastsaver, Whitehead built a model but decided that the idea was not viable. He did however start to think about the problem of setting off explosive charges remotely below a ships waterline, Whitehead made a device running under water and installed an engine running on compressed air, as well as automatic guidances for the depth and direction. Whitehead had significantly altered the design, but always credited Lupis with the invention. On 21 December 1866 the first automobile torpedo, now named Minenschiff, was demonstrated in front of the Austro-Hungarian state commission for evaluation. This model was 355 mm in diameter and 3.35 m in length, the naval commission accepted it, and subsequently on 6 March 1867 the government contracted the inventors for a test production and agreed to pay all the production costs. Whitehead retained the copyrights and even negotiated a new contract with Luppis which gave Whitehead full control of all future sales, on 27 May 1867, the navy paid 200,000 forints in royalties to the inventor. The invention was generally regarded as a one, but in the first years of production there were not enough orders, so Stabilimento went through a crisis. R. Whitehead took it over and at the beginning of 1875 transformed it into a company called Torpedo-Fabrik von Robert Whitehead
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Austro-Hungarian Navy
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The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine, abbreviated as k. u. k, Kriegsmarine, and in Hungarian Császári és Királyi Haditengerészet, abbreviated as Cs. This navy existed under this name after the formation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867, prior to 1867, the empires naval forces were those of the Austrian Empire. By 1915 a total of 33,735 naval personnel were serving in the k. u. k, after the First World War, both Austria and Hungary were deprived of their coasts, and their navy was confiscated by the victorious Allied powers. Their former ports on the Adriatic Sea, such as Trieste, Pola, Fiume, Kriegsmarine were designated SMS, for Seiner Majestät Schiff. Until the end of the 18th century there were only limited attempts to establish an Austrian navy, after the Seven Years War Austrian vulnerability to privateers in the Mediterranean Sea led Count Kaunitz to push for the creation of a small force of frigates. A specific Naval Ensign based on the colours was introduced only in the reign of Emperor Joseph II. This situation changed considerably in 1797 with the Treaty of Campo Formio between France and Austria, Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands and certain islands in the Mediterranean, including Corfu and some Venetian islands in the Adriatic. Venice and its territories were divided between the two states, and the Austrian emperor received the city of Venice along with Istria and Dalmatia, the substantial Venetian naval forces and facilities were also handed over to Austria and became the basis of the formation of the future Austrian Navy. The navy gained its first influential supporter when Archduke Charles third son Archduke Friedrich entered the service in 1837, the young archduke introduced many modernizing reforms, aiming to make his countrys naval force less Venetian and more Austrian. In 1844 Archduke Friedrich was promoted vice-admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Austrian warships had their first military encounters during the Oriental Crisis of 1840 as a part of a British-led fleet which ousted the Viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, from Ottoman Syria. Archduke Friedrich took part in the campaign personally and was awarded the Military Order of Maria Theresa for his exceptional leadership, in 1849 the Dane Hans von Dahlerup was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy. He introduced many personal and other reforms and imposed in the Navy the replacement of the Italian language by the German language, in the following years the strength of the Navy reached 4 frigates,6 corvettes,7 brigs, and smaller ships. In 1854 the younger brother of the reigning Emperor Franz Joseph took office as Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian was twenty-two at that time. Archduke Friedrichs distant relative was trained for the navy, and threw himself into new career with much zeal. In Venice the naval shipyard was retained, here the Austrian screw-driven gunboat Kerka was launched in 1860. The journey lasted 2 years and 3 months and was accomplished under the command of Kommodore Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair, with 345 officers and crew, and 7 scientists aboard. The expedition was planned by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna and aimed to gain new knowledge in the disciplines of astronomy, botany, zoology, geology, oceanography and hydrography
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Rijeka, Croatia
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Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia. It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,624 inhabitants, the metropolitan area, which includes adjacent towns and municipalities, has a population of more than 240,000. According to the 2011 census data, the majority of its citizens are presently Croats, along with small numbers of Bosniaks, Italians. Rijeka is the city of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County. The citys economy depends on shipbuilding and maritime transport. Rijeka hosts the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc, first built in 1765, as well as the University of Rijeka, founded in 1973, historically Fiumano served as a lingua franca for the many ethnicities inhabiting the multicultural port-town. In 2016, Rijeka was selected as the European Capital of Culture for 2020, alongside Galway, historically, Rijeka was also called Tharsatica, Vitopolis, or Flumen in Latin. The city is called Rijeka in Croatian, Reka in Slovene and it is called Fiume in Italian. All these names mean river in their respective languages, meanwhile, Hungarian has adopted the Italian name while in German the city has been called Sankt Veit am Flaum or Pflaum. The Bay of Rijeka, which is bordered by Vela Vrata, Srednja Vrata, the City of Rijeka lies at the mouth of river Rječina and in the Vinodol micro-region of the Croatian coast. Two important land transport routes start in Rijeka due to its location, the first route is to the Pannonian Basin given that Rijeka is located alongside the narrowest point of the Dinaric Alps. The other route, across Postojna Gate connects Rijeka with Slovenia, Italy, the city long retained its dual character. Pliny mentioned Tarsatica in his Natural History, in the time of Augustus, the Romans rebuilt Tharsatica as a municipium Flumen, situated on the right bank of small river Rječina. It became a city within the Roman Province of Dalmatia until the 6th century, after the 4th century Rijeka was rededicated to St. Vitus, the citys patron saint, as Terra Fluminis sancti Sancti Viti or in German Sankt Veit am Pflaum. From the 5th century onwards, the town was ruled successively by the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, Croats settled the city starting in the 7th century giving it the Croatian name, Rika svetoga Vida. At the time, Rijeka was a feudal stronghold surrounded by a wall, at the center of the city, its highest point, was a fortress. In 799 Rijeka was attacked by the Frankish troops of Charlemagne and their Siege of Trsat was at first repulsed, during which the Frankish commander Duke Eric of Friuli was killed. However, the Frankish forces finally occupied and devastated the castle, while the Duchy of Croatia passed under the overlordship of the Carolingian Empire, from about 925, the town was part of the Kingdom of Croatia, from 1102 in personal union with Hungary
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Austria-Hungary
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The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies, and one region, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown. It was ruled by the House of Habsburg, and constituted the last phase in the evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal, Foreign affairs and the military came under joint oversight, but all other governmental faculties were divided between respective states. Austria-Hungary was a state and one of the worlds great powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 km2, the Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was annexed in 1908. The annexation of Bosnia also led to Islam being recognized as a state religion due to Bosnias Muslim population. Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I and it was already effectively dissolved by the time the military authorities signed the armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. The realms full, official name was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, each enjoyed considerable sovereignty with only a few joint affairs. Certain regions, such as Polish Galicia within Cisleithania and Croatia within Transleithania, enjoyed autonomous status, the division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship, one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both. This also meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, however, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports which were written in Croatian and French and it is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was under the control of both Austria and Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire. Hungarys central government structures remained well separated from the Austrian imperial government, the country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary – located in Pressburg and later in Pest – and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. The Hungarian government and Hungarian parliament were suspended after the Hungarian revolution of 1848, despite Austria and Hungary sharing a common currency, they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. Since the beginnings of the union, the government of the Kingdom of Hungary could preserve its separated. After the revolution of 1848–1849, the Hungarian budget was amalgamated with the Austrian, from 1527 to 1851, the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs controls, which separated her from the other parts of the Habsburg-ruled territories
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This article incorporates text from Overland monthly and Out West magazine, by Bret Harte, a publication from 1886 now in the public domain in the United States.
This article incorporates text from Overland monthly and Out West magazine, by Bret Harte, a publication from 1886 now in the 