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Some of history's greatest and decisive battles have taken place at sea. Major engagements, including the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Midway, are well known. But there are many other equally bloody and brutal confrontations that you may not be aware of and yet they changed the course of wars and campaigns, and often rewrote the tactical and strategical rule book.
Click through the following gallery, set sail, and relive these historic sea battles.
The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval engagement and the only full-scale clash of battleships during the First World War. Fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, it took place from May 31 to June 1, 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. Neither side achieved a decisive victory. Pictured: HMS Lion is shelled and HMS Queen Mary is blown up by German shells during the battle.
The Battle of Trafalgar took place on October 21, 1805, and was fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies off Cape Trafalgar, along the southwest coast of Spain. The Royal Navy won a decisive victory, but at the cost of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson, who was shot and died shortly before the battle ended.
In September 480 BCE, an alliance of Greek city-states and those of the Persian Empire faced off against each other in a narrow strait west of the island of Salamis, just off mainland Greece. It resulted in a surprising victory for the heavily outnumbered Greeks, and marked a turning point in the course of the bloody Greco-Persian wars.
Historically significant as the first naval action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from May 4-8, 1942 in the Pacific, was a major confrontation between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the combined naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. The US fleet carrier Lexington was among the vessels lost during the battle, which was seen as a limited tactical win for the Japanese. But in strategic terms, the engagement was a major Allied victory. Pictured: men abandoning the USS Lexington.
Named for the small port of Gravelines, which was part of Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands close to the border with France, the Battle of Gravelines was an important event in the English defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The battle began on August 6 and continued the following day, the eight-hour engagement ending in the humiliating retreat of the Spanish fleet.
The largest naval battle of WWII, and considered by many historians as possibly the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved, the Battle of Leyte Gulf took place in waters near the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar, and Luzon, from October 23-26, 1944, between combined American and Australian forces and the Japanese Imperial Navy. Despite Japanese aircraft carrying out organized kamikaze attacks for the first time, the Japanese Navy was roundly defeated. Pictured: USS St. Lo becoming the first major warship to sink as the result of a kamikaze attack.
In the history of naval warfare, Lepanto marks the last major engagement in the Western world to be fought almost entirely by rowing vessels. The battle took place on October 7, 1571, when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic states brought together by Pope Pius V, inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras, in the Ionian Sea.
Fought off southern Sicily in 256 BCE between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, the Battle of Cape Ecnomus took place during the first Punic War (264-241 BCE) and resulted in a clear victory for the Romans. With a combined total of approximately 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew, this engagement is the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved.
At the Battle of Actium, which took place on September 2, 31 BCE in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of Greece, the Roman leader Octavian saw off the combined forces of Mark Anthony and Queen Cleopatra of Greece. Octavian's victory enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its dominions.
The major sea battle of Dan-no-ura marked the culmination of a long series of bitter wars fought between two feudal families in Japan: the Minamoto clan and the Taira clan. It took place on April 25, 1158 at Dan-no-ura, in the Shimonoseki Strait off the southern tip of Honshu. The youthful and charismatic Emperor Antoku was one of those who perished among the Taira nobles, their defeat leading to the end of the Taira bid for control of Japan.
The Battle of Chesma took place July 5-7, 1770, near and in Chesma Bay off the western tip of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and the island of Chios (a Greek island in the Aegean Sea). The first of a number of disastrous fleet battles for the Ottomans against the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774), this was the greatest naval defeat suffered by the Ottomans since the Battle of Lepanto.
On August 16, 1606, the first salvos were fired in what became known as the Battle of Cape Rachado, when the two naval superpowers of the time, the Portuguese fleets and those of the combined Dutch East India Company/Sultanate of Johor, engaged off the present-day Malaccan enclave of Cape Rachado. Although the battle ended with a Portuguese victory, a massive Dutch-Johor-Aceh assault 30 years later ended 130 years of Portuguese supremacy in the region.
Fought during the summer of 1720 in the Åland Islands, the Battle of Grengam was the last major naval engagement in the Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden. A Russian victory led to the signing of the Treaty of Nystad the following year, effectively ending hostilities between the two nations.
The first naval battle of the Second World War was fought in South American waters after the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee was engaged by Royal Navy vessels off the estuary of the River Plate close to the coast of Uruguay and Argentina. HMS Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles managed to cripple the larger boat, which was eventually scuttled by its captain, Hans Langsdorf, after sailing to Montevideo for repairs. Langsdorf later killed himself.
The historic significance of the Battle of Hampton Roads is that it was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. Fought over two days, March 8-9, 1862, near Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, during the American Civil War, the duel ended indecisively. But the battle marked the beginning of the iron-clad arms race.
Taking place over four separate days— August 12, 20, 22, and 25, 1499—the Battle of Zonchio was fought between the Ottoman fleet and the Venetian fleet in waters off Cape Zonchio in the Ionian Sea. Part of the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503, the battle was won by the Ottomans, who dealt a severe blow to the Venetian morale.
Described by many Second World War historians as "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history," the Battle of Midway took place on June 4-7, 1942 at the Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The US Navy defeated an attacking force of the Imperial Japanese Navy in a tactically decisive and strategically influential engagement. Pictured: the Japanese cruiser Mikuma shortly before sinking.
On August 5, 1864, a Union fleet, commanded by Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, attacked a smaller Confederate fleet led by Admiral Franklin Buchanan and three forts that guarded the approach to Mobile Bay in Alabama. Farrgut's order, "Damn the torpedoes, [...] full speed ahead!" quickly became a well-known Union rallying cry during the American Civil War. Farragut ultimately succeeded in sealing off the port from Confederate forces.
The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the largest carrier-to-carrier naval battle in history, involving a combined total of 24 aircraft carriers from the United States' Fifth Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy. Action took place over two days, June 19-20, 1944, after which the Japanese had lost the bulk of its carrier air strength and would never recover. Pictured: the Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku (center) and the destroyers Akizuki and Wakatsuki maneuvering, while under attack by US Navy carrier aircraft.
On November 1, 1914, the Imperial German Navy roundly defeated the British Royal Navy off the coast of Chile near the city of Coronel. Shock at the loss led the Admiralty in London to send more ships to pursue the victorious Germans. The two sides would meet again in little over a month for a rematch. Pictured: the armored cruiser Scharnhorst, flagship of the German East Asia Squadron, is seen in the port of Valparaiso.
A First World War engagement between the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy, the Battle of the Falkland Islands took place on December 8, 1914 in the South Atlantic and was fought by British forces in retaliation for their defeat at the Battle of Coronel in November of that year. The British subsequently destroyed the German cruiser squadron responsible. Pictured: HMS Inflexible picking up German sailors from SMS Gneisenau after the battle.
Taking place in the winter of 208 CE at the end of the Han dynasty, the Battle of Red Cliffs was, in effect, a clash between the allied forces of the southern warlord Liu Bei and forces loyal to the northern warlord, Cao Cao. The battle, one of the largest naval engagements in history in terms of numbers involved, took place somewhere on the Yangtze river, though the exact location is uncertain. The southern forces emerged victorious.
The first major conflict of the 20th century was the Battle of Tsushima, fought on May 27-28, 1905 in the Straits of Tsushima between Russian and Japanese forces. It was naval history's first decisive sea battle fought by modern battleship fleets, and resulted in the Russian fleet's decimation. Pictured: the Russian battleship Oslyabya, the first warship sunk in the battle.
Cape Matapan on the south-west coast of Greece's Peloponnesian Peninsula was the location on March 27, 1941 of a naval battle fought between ships of the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, and vessels of the Italian Regia Marina. The combined Allied strength proved too much for the Axis forces and, in fact, Matapan was Italy’s greatest defeat at sea. Pictured: the Italian heavy cruiser Bolzano under attack.
The only documentation of this major conflict that took place between Egypt and a seafaring confederation known as the Sea Peoples circa 1175 BCE is on the temple walls of the mortuary temple of pharaoh Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. The Egyptians claimed victory.
This August 1854 battle is named for the 19th-century fortress built by the Russians that stood in Sund, on the Åland Islands, which an Anglo-French expeditionary force attacked during the Crimean War. Pictured: HMS Bulldog in Bomarsund.
The Battle of Savo Island was the first major engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign in the Pacific and involved the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied forces. The battle, which took place on August 8-9, 1942, was unusual in that much of the action took place at night. The engagement was costly, with the Japanese inflicting a heavy defeat on Australian and US forces.
Fought off the coast of France near St. Nazaire on November 20, 1759, the Battle of Quiberon Bay was a decisive naval engagement between the Royal Navy and the French Navy. Ending in a win for the British, the battle signaled the rise of the Royal Navy in becoming the world's foremost naval power.
The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval engagement between British and German battle cruisers during WWI. It was fought near Dogger Bank in the North Sea on January 14, 1915, and resulted in a victory for the Royal Navy. In fact, such was the scale of the defeat that the German Navy delayed further significant action against the British fleet for more than a year. Pictured: SMS Blücher rolls over onto her side.
Venetian and Ottoman forces gathered in the harbor of Focchies in Smyrna (modern-day İzmir, Turkey) on May 12, 1649, for what became a significant naval engagement for the control of the Adriatic and Mediterranean sea trade routes. The Venetian fleet suffered a major defeat.
These are history's most important sea battles
The Battle of Trafalgar took place on October 21, 1805
LIFESTYLE War
Some of history's most important and decisive battles have taken place at sea. Major engagements, including the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Midway, are well known. But there are many other equally bloody and brutal confrontations that you may not be aware of and yet they changed the course of wars and campaigns, and often rewrote the tactical and strategical rule book.
Click through the following gallery, set sail, and relive these historic sea battles.