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Robert Jenkins (master Mariner)
Robert Jenkins (1730s-40s in Llanelli, Wales – fl.) was a Welsh master mariner, famous as the protagonist of the "Jenkins's ear" incident, which became a contributory cause of the War of Jenkins' Ear between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain in 1739. Returning home from a trading voyage in the West Indies in command of the smuggling brig ''Rebecca'' in April 1731, Jenkins' ship was stopped and boarded by the Spanish guarda-costa or privateer ''La Isabela'' on suspicion of smuggling. According to some accounts, her commander, Juan de León Fandiño, had Jenkins bound to a mast, then sliced off his left ear with his sword and allegedly told him to say to his King "the same will happen to him (the king) if caught doing the same". Another account, in the ''Pennsylvania Gazette'' for 7 October 1731, attributes the assault to the Spanish lieutenant Dorce, who "took hold of his left Ear, and with his Cutlass slit it down; and then another of the Spaniards took hol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Colonization Of The Americas
The British colonization of the Americas was the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ... and, after 1707, Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first permanent English colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Approximately 30,000 Algonquian peoples lived in the region at the time. Over the next several centuries more colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictionary Of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives. First series Hoping to emulate national biographical collections published elsewhere in Europe, such as the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (1875), in 1882 the publisher George Smith (1824–1901), of Smith, Elder & Co., planned a universal dictionary that would include biographical entries on individuals from world history. He approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the ''Cornhill Magazine'', owned by Smith, to become the editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus only on subjects from the United Kingdom and its present and former colonies. An early working title was the ''Biographia Britannica'', the name of an earlier eighteen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Lambert
Andrew Lambert (born 31 December 1956) is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Academic career After completing his doctoral research, Lambert was lecturer in modern international history at Bristol Polytechnic from 1983 until 1987; consultant in the Department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, from 1987 until 1989; senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, from 1989 until 1991; senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London from 1996 until 1999, then professor of naval history, from 1999 until 2001; and then Laughton Professor of Naval History, and Director of the Laughton Unit. He served as Honorary Secretary of the Navy Records Society from 1996 until 2005 and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Lambert's work focuses on the naval and strategic history of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Stewart (Royal Navy Officer)
Vice-Admiral Charles Stewart (1681 – 5 February 1741) was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the Nine Years' War, and the Wars of the Spanish Succession, Quadruple Alliance and Austrian Succession. He embarked on a political career, and was a Member of Parliament for the Parliaments of Ireland and Great Britain. Stewart was born into the nobility, raised the younger son of a viscount. He entered the navy at an early age, but suffered a severe wound at the beginning of his career, losing his right hand. He recovered, and prospered in the service, rising to command several ships in the frequent wars of the early eighteenth century. He also had an interest in politics, representing Tyrone from 1715. By 1720 he had risen high enough in the navy to be entrusted with a squadron to take action against Mediterranean piracy, particularly the dangerous Salé Rovers. He had the dual commission of acting as minister plenipotentiary to Morocco, and managed to successful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navy Records Society
The Navy Records Society was established in 1893 as a scholarly text publication society to publish historical documents relating to the history of the Royal Navy. Professor Sir John Knox Laughton and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge were the key leaders who organized the society, basing it on the model of earlier organisations such as the Hakluyt Society and the Camden Society. The American naval historian, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, was one of the first overseas members to join the Navy Records Society. The society has published volumes of original documents and papers almost every year since its foundation. The volumes cover all the major figures in British naval history, such as Nelson, Beatty and Cunningham, and a wide range of topics, from signals and shipbuilding to strategy and politics. In 2006 the NRS published its 150th volume. Recent volumes Online magazine The society has recently augmented its traditional book publishing activities with the launch of it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Knox Laughton
Sir John Knox Laughton (23 April 1830 – 14 September 1915) was a British naval historian and arguably the first to delineate the importance of the subject of Naval history as an independent field of study. Beginning his working life as a mathematically trained civilian instructor for the Royal Navy, he later became Professor of Modern History at King's College London and a co-founder of the Navy Records Society. A prolific writer of lives, he penned the biographies of more than 900 naval personalities for the ''Dictionary of National Biography''. Family Laughton was born in Liverpool on 23 April 1830, the second son and youngest child of a former Master Mariner, James Laughton of Liverpool (1777–1859). In 1866, Laughton married his first wife, Isabella, daughter of John Carr of Dunfermline. They had two sons, Leonard and Arthur, and three daughters – Elsbeth, Mary and Dorothy. In 1886, Laughton married his second wife, María Josefa, daughter of Eugenio di Alberti, of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snow (ship)
In sailing, a snow, snaw or snauw is a square-rigged vessel with two masts, complemented by a snow- or trysail-mast stepped immediately abaft (behind) the main mast.Hans Haalmeijer (2009). Pinassen, fluiten en galjassen, the Netherlands: Uitgeverij De Alk B.V. History The word 'snow' comes from 'snauw', which is an old Dutch word for beak, a reference to the characteristic sharp bow of the vessel. The snow evolved from the (three-masted) ship: the mizzen mast of a ship was gradually moved closer towards the mainmast, until the mizzen mast was no longer a separate mast, but was instead made fast at the main mast top. As such, in the 17th century the snow used to be sometimes classified as a three-masted vessel. The snow dates back to the late 17th century and originally had a loose-footed gaff sail; the boom was introduced somewhere in the 18th century. It was a popular type of vessel in the Baltic Sea and was employed by a large number of nations during its time. The snow was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, vessels used for piracy are pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks. The term ''piracy'' generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land, in the air, on computer networks, and (in scie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Helena
Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Saint Helena measures about and has a population of 4,439 per the 2021 census. It was named after Helena, mother of Constantine I. It is one of the most remote islands in the world and was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese enroute to the Indian subcontinent in 1502. For about four centuries the island was an important stopover for ships from Europe to Asia and back, while sailing around the African continent, until the opening of the Suez canal. St Helena is the United Kingdom's second-oldest overseas territory after Bermuda. Saint Helena is known for being the site of Napoleon's second exile, following his final defeat in 1815. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. The operations of the company had a profound effect on the global balance of trade, almost single-handedly reversing the trend of eastward drain of Western bullion, seen since Roman times. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Vernon
Admiral Edward Vernon (12 November 1684 – 30 October 1757) was an English naval officer. He had a long and distinguished career, rising to the rank of admiral after 46 years service. As a vice admiral during the War of Jenkins' Ear, in 1739 he was responsible for the capture of Porto Bello, seen as expunging the failure of Admiral Hosier there in a previous conflict. However, his amphibious operation against the Spanish port of Cartagena de Indias was a disastrous defeat. Vernon also served as a Member of Parliament (MP) on three occasions and was outspoken on naval matters in Parliament, making him a controversial figure. The origin of the name "grog" for rum diluted with water is attributed to Vernon. He was known for wearing coats made of grogram cloth, earning him the nickname of "Old Grog", which in turn came to mean the diluted rum that he first introduced into his naval squadron. He is also the eponym of George Washington's estate Mount Vernon, and thereby th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
