#dutch warships

[ltwilliammowett]

Dutch warships off Gibraltar, c.1650, by Arnold de Lange (1968-)

[illustratus]

The Bombardment of Algiers, 1816 by George Chambers.

[jovianwishes]

I feel like everyone should know about the time that the Dutch spied on Russian warships with submarines for months in the Cold War and absolutely no one knew about it, not even the NATO. Such a Ned move

[sixminutestoriesblog]

ides of march

well, its tumblr's favorite holiday and who can blame us? The assassination of Julius Caesar is probably one of the only group projects that ever went down the way it was supposed to with, well, not complete group participation (there were said to be upward of 60 people involved but only 23 stab wounds - obviously someone was not carrying their weight) but at least a good effort was made at it. But lets take a moment, between our jokes about salad and Animal Crossing butterfly nets to look at what else has happened in history on the Ides of March. For instance, did you know, on March 15th:

1493 - Columbus returned to Spain after 'discovering' the new world.

1580 - Phillip II of Spain put a bounty on the head of Prince William I of Orange for 25,000 gold coins for leading the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Hamburgs

1744 - King Louis XV of France declares war on Britain

1767 - Andrew Jackson, who would go on to be the seventh president of the US, was born.

1820 - Maine became the 23rd state in the US

1864 - the Red River Campaign, called 'One damn blunder from beginning to end' started for the Union Forces in the American Civil War

1889 - a typhoon in Apia Harbor, Samoa sinks 6 US and German warships, killing 200

1917 - Czar Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne, bringing an end to the Romanov dynasty

1955 - the first self-guided missile is introduced by the US Air Force

1965 - TGI Friday's opens its first restaurant in New York City

1991 - in LA, four police officers are brought up on charges for the beating of Rodney King

2018 - Toys R Us announces it will be closing all its stores

2019 - a terrorist attacks two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51, and wounding 50 others

Oof! Pretty bleak, isn't it? It would almost make you think that the day is just bad luck, start to finish and its probably just as well, we're all focusing on assassination instead of other horrors. But wait - its not all bad news! The Ides of March has some tricks up its sleeve yet (joke intended). I'd be telling you only half the story if I didn't add:

1854 - Emil von Behring is born and will eventually become the first to receive the Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery of a diphtheria antitoxin, being called 'the children's savoir' for the lives it saves

1867 - Michigan is the first state to use property tax to support a university

1868 - the Cincinnati Red Stockings have ten salaried players, making them the first professional baseball team in the US

1887 - Michigan has the first salaried fish and game warden

1892 - the first automatic ballot voting machine is unveiled in New York City

1907 - Finland gives women the right to vote, becoming the first to do so in Europe

1933 - Ruth Bader Ginsberg is born and will go on to become a US Supreme Court justice

1934 - the 5$ a day wage was introduced by Henry Ford, forcing other companies to raise their wages as well or lose their workers

1937 - the first state sponsored contraceptive clinic in the US opens in Raleigh, North Carolina

1946 - the British Prime minister recognizes India's independence

1947 - the US Navy has its first black commissioned officer, John Lee

1949 - clothes rationing ends in Britain, four years after the end of WWII

1960 - ten nations meet in Geneva for disarmament talks

1968 - the Dioceses of Rome says it will not ban 'rock and roll' from being played during mass but that it deplores the practice - also in 1968, LIFE magazine titles Jimi Hendrix 'the most spectacular guitarist in the world'

1971 - ARPANET, the precursor of the modern day internet, sees its first forum

1984 - Tanzanian adopts a constitution

1985 - symbolics.com, the first internet domain name, is registered

The Ides of March turns out to just be a day, like any other day in history.

Unless you're us. In which case -

[greatwesternway]

you mentioned there are strict rules for war machines, what else does that entail?

So at the basic level, war machines from the losing side of a war will submit to those from the winning side. When the war's over, it's over and it's time to settle up. There's some room to save face in that on an individual level in that you can't just claim prizes because your side won. You do actually have to be able to win that fight. This is what saves keeps U-505 from being conscripted into the war planes' games. Spitfire might be able to beat him in an actual battle at sea, but he'd not be able to beat him at one of the museum's sanctioned, pulled-punched brawls.

(That his exhibit is separate and much more somber in nature to the broader plane exhibit also exempts him from getting involved in their playfights, but that's not really anything to do with the Rules.)

As it is, these kind of situations are rare: there's not that many places where war machines from separate sides of a war are in any position to need to navigate these politics.

Unfortunately for U-505, he particularly is subject not only to the same rules all war machines adhere to, but also the subset under prize rules. He is the sole victim of the great irony of prize rules, in fact.

So prize rules are a gentleman's agreement from 18-fuckety-two that basically said that passenger ships aren't allowed to be sunk at all and if you were going to sink or capture a merchant ship, you had to ensure its crew were "in a place of safety" first. Only warhips and merchant ships who were a threat could be sunk without warning. This was all well and fine until WWI when they started using submarines.

See, generally the fix for when you wanted to sink a merchant ship but be cool about it was you'd take the crew prisoner. Failing that, you could let them float in life jackets if they were near to land or you could wait until another boat came by to rescue them. U-505 once sunk a Dutch ship and had a nice evening palling around with the guys from her crew before they were rescued.

But the problem in general is that submarines were more or less exclusively used for taking out merchant ships and operated necessarily by stealth and so having to abide by prize rules didn't really jibe with the modus operandi. Submarines were also not built to take prisoners or capture other ships. There's enough room in there for their own crew and little else. That nice evening with the Dutch crewmen could only happen because there weren't any other ships around to threaten U-505.

So, on account of submarine warfare, prize rules were largely abandoned in WWII.

Mostly.

You can probably guess the rest of this story.

The first ship captured by the U.S. Navy since 18-fuckety-two is a submarine. And despite the irony of him being a class of ship that did away with adherence to prize rules... his captors did follow those rules for him, despite having no obligation to even if they were observing those rules properly since U-505 was a warship.

All 58 of his remaining crew - the entire manifest save for one causality - were rescued, taken prisoner, and by most accounts were treated quite well considering. This means that U-505 is then obliged and motivated to meet his end of the deal. As a captured prize, he accepts that he's U.S. property in general and Guadalcanal's in particular (who was the only one in the task force strong enough to haul him home) and cooperates with orders given (within an acceptable margin of insubordination). And it might not seem it, but this is the dignified thing to do in this event, particularly since his crew were spared.

For as much as he would have preferred to sink that day, U-505 does harbor gratitude for the U.S. Navy's mercy. It's a large imposition to take on 58 prisoners. That he stands now as a monument to U. S. sailors lost in war, his own crew survived and made it home eventually. Most U-boat crews didn't. So that's the bargain as he sees it. He continues to serve this obligation to this day, well after all his crewman have passed on, because that those rules were observed for him is one of the few measures on which he considers himself fortunate.

[usafphantom2]

France has Mirage 2000D fighter-bombers left over and Ukraine wants them

It is no wonder that rumors continue to circulate around France, Ukraine and the Dassault Mirage 2000D fighter bomber.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 02/09/2024 - 15:41in Military, War Zones

Ukraine needs warplanes. France is retiring some of its Delta Mirage 2000D. And the French government has already promised Ukraine the best precision-guided ammunition from the Mirage.

If France is really going to donate Mirages, the announcement may occur soon. French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to visit Ukraine this month.

It is obvious that Ukraine would want some of the Mirage 2000D left over from the French air force. Supersonic, single-engine and two-seater Mirages are fully compatible with SCALP-EG cruise missiles and Hammer smart pumps. The first missile model is already in use in Ukraine; the Hammer will arrive soon.

The French Air Force acquired 86 Mirage 2000D fighters from the manufacturer Dassault and, after three decades of intense use during which several jets fell, it chose to upgrade 55 of the jets for service by the 2030s. This leaves about 20 of the planes that are surplus for France's needs.

Ukrainian authorities have been keeping an eye on this type while working with Danish, Dutch and Norwegian authorities to acquire dozens of surplus European Lockheed Martin F-16s – and qualify Ukrainian pilots in single-seater fighters in the United States and Romania.

“It is possible that the combat capabilities of the Su-24M bombers will be improved by the Mirage 2000D,” Ukrainian Air Force commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk wrote last month.

Oleshchuk is not wrong in linking the French fighter to the existing Sukhoi Su-24M bombers in his air force. The variable geometry sukhois are the main long-range attack aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force.

Firing British-made Storm Shadow and French SCALP cruise missiles at a range of about 320 kilometers, the Su-24 blew up Russian navy warships, attacked Russian air bases, knocked down bridges in Russian-occupied territories and destroyed Russian headquarters.

France gave Ukraine about 50 of the SCALPs of 2,900 pounds in 2023 and recently promised another 40. However, the United Kingdom donated an unspecified number of similar Storm Shadows - probably dozens of copies.

However, the Ukrainians have few bombers. The only Su-24M unit of the Air Force, the 7ª Tactical Aviation Brigade in Starokostiantyniv, western Ukraine, went to war in February 2022 with probably two dozen Sukhois. In 23 months of hard fighting, according to the Oryx website, he lost 18 of the bombers.

Although it is possible that Ukrainian technicians can bring back to flight status some of the dozens of abandoned Su-24s that were mofing in open storage in several aircraft cemeteries throughout Ukraine, there is another way to restore the strength of the front line of the 7ª Brigade: to give it the Mirage 2000D.

Yes, French jets would need new logistics infrastructure. Yes, Sukhoi crews may have to spend months qualifying for the Mirages. The investment may be worth it, however.

On the one hand, it is increasingly unlikely that Ukraine will obtain surplus warplanes from the United States. Republicans aligned with Russia in the U.S. Congress blocked more aid to Ukraine for months. If the Ukrainian air force intends to rearm itself, it should do so with European planes.

In addition, the Mirages may reach Ukraine shortly after Ukraine also receives a large shipment - hundreds, according to Macron - of bombs driven by Hammer rockets, each with a range of up to 55 kilometers.

The Hammers, which come in 276, 1,100 and 2,200 pounds versions with a variety of search engine options. They are comparable to the Joint Direct Attack Munition gliding bombs that the United States gave to Ukraine before the Republicans cut the aid, and that the Ukrainians installed on their former Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters.

Where it takes time and effort to integrate a new Western ammunition into a Soviet-made Sukhoi or MiG warplane, the Mirage 2000D has been compatible with Hammer bombs since the ammunition debuted in French service in 2007.

Source: Forbes

Tags: Armée de l'air - French Air Force/French Air ForceMilitary AviationMirage 2000DWar Zones - Russia/Ukraine

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[bayoubashsims]

Addams Family Tree & History

I'm sick with the flu and still grieving, so I decided to remake the Addams Family tree (lol excuse the tacky graphic design) and write down their fictional history based on all of the references to their ancestors. Some of the placements of relatives here are speculative, based on the time they lived in and so on.

Pre-1600s

The many iterations of the Addams Family provides several information on the history of the fictional family. The eldest known ancestor of the Addams family is probably the ghostly caveman featured in the musical and Mamoud Khali Pasha Addams, who was called the Firebug of the Bosporus that burned the Library of Alexandria down in 270 AD. Around the Dark Ages, an ancestor named Rulen the Ruthless Addams existed.

1600s

The earliest appearance of an ancestor was one that was featured prominently in Wednesday (series). Goody Addams and her mother lived in Jericho, Vermont during the witch trials of 1625 and were of Mexican descent, having lived among the native folk for a long time. When the town founder Joseph Crackstone set those accused of withcraft on fire, Goody escaped. Goody is not mentioned to be a direct ancestor, so it is possible that she may be the sister of one of Wednesday's ancestors.

A year later, in 1626, a Dutch man by the name of Van Dyke Addams helped in buying Manhattan from the natives of New York. Though Gomez claimed him to be his great-great-great-great-grandfather, this is not plausible because of Long John (see below), who existed in the latter part of the 1600s. Given the timeline, it's possible that Van Dyke was actually the grandfather of Long John and the father of Goody.

In the The New Addams Family, Long John Addams, Gomez's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was a pirate and in 1699 wrote a story about his life. He had a brother named Curly Addams, whose severed hand became Pinky (presumably an ancestor of Thing) and Long John later married Lady Penelope Addams, who was actually a dread pirate that was his rival and sought someone to best her.

1700s

In the early 1700s, an aunt by the name of Calpurnia Addams danced naked in the town square and enslaved a minister, and was burned as a witch in 1706.

According to Gomez in the musical in July 31st, 1715, a man named Captain General Redondo Cuervo (short for Redondo Ventana Laguna Don Jose Cuervo), who commanded a Spanish warship named Pico de Gallo, sailed from Madrid, but was still stuck there three weeks later. He sank six months later off the southern coast of Florida and presumably settled there. It was not mentioned that he was a direct ancestor by Gomez and he did not bear the name of Addams, so it's possible that he might have come from a maternal line.

A woman by the name of Miss Salem Addams was born in 1730 and lived up until 1830, and was buried in the family cemetery.

In 1764, an Admiral John Paul Addams was apparently hanged, but he was also apparently responsible for 'the shot heard round the world' in 1775, which began the American Revolutionary War, and for fighting against Hideki Tojo's forces and the German flotilla in the North Atlantic sea during World War II.

It can be inferred that he was possibly the captain of a ghost ship, considering that he had died in the mid 1700s and was yet active in the 1940s. It is possible that he was Gomez's great-great-great-great-grandfather.

Another relative who appeared in the American Revolutionary War was Old Cannonball Addams, who was said to be a natural-born leader at Bunker Hill in 1775 before he began firing at his own men due to him not being able to see without his glasses. An Addams that possibly lived in this generation as well was Blood and Guts Addams, who may also have been in the American Revolutionary War.

During the 1700s, apparently a branch of the family split into the famous Adams political family in Boston, Massachussetts, of which Gomez's distant cousin by marriage, Abigail Adams, is a member of and sees herself as the head of the family.

1800s

Around this time, Ol' Ebenezer Addams led early settlers to the Great Plains and sold the first guns to the Native Americans (it is possible that he was Gomez's great-great-great-grandfather). Later on, Old Blood and Thunder Addams participated in the American Civil War and was very inspirational right before he turned traitor at Shiloh in 1862, while in 1863, General Ulysses S. Addams surrendered in Vicksburg after enemy soldiers caught up with him.

Then presumably in c.1860-1870, Gomez's great-great-grandfather, Goober Addams (according to Gomez in the 1992 series) built The Addams Family Mansion in order to enjoy the swamp. It is possible that Goober was a sibling of Blood and Thunder and Ulysses, and the son of Ebenezer.

His presumable son, Pegleg Addams, was Gomez's great-grandfather (mentioned in the 1964 series), who was the last of the adventureous Addams and was wanted by fifteen countries for piracy. He had hid the treasure under the mansion. It was possible that he had siblings by the name of Bluebeard Addams, Black Bart Addams, and Bloody Addams, who were presumably pirates too.

1900s

Pegleg had at least one son, Mortimer Addams, a pyromaniac who resembled Gomez and married Delilah Addams. Delilah is possibly the daughter of Grandpa Squint, a medical expert of some kind who Abraham Lincoln begged for his political support in the 1860s, and Grandma Squint, who often makes strange sounds and cackles from the attic on dark stormy nights.

It was possible that Pegleg had another son named Uncle Blight, who masterminded the presidential campaigns of Al Smith, Wendell Wilkie, and Adlai Stevenson in 1928, 1940, and 1952 (respectively). Additionally, a relative by the name of Edwin Booth Addams was presumably named after the killer of Abraham Lincoln, and could possibly be a relative of them.

Mortimer and Delilah visited the family in Addams Family Reunion, in which they showed symptoms for Waltzheimer's Disease and became pleasant old people. By the time of The New Addams Family, Delilah had died by being struck by a truck while rollerblading with headphones on. Mortimer later married Diandra Addams, who resembled Morticia.

Mortimer's son was Father Addams (possibly named Harold) who later married Grandmama (or Mother Addams), and they had four children: Gomez Addams, Pancho Addams, and Uncle Cosimo, Uncle Fester. They spent some time in Spain (Gomez calls it his 'ancestral land') as it was mentioned that Gomez lived there until he was 10 and a marriage was arranged by Mortimer (who signed the marriage contract) and Don Xavier Molina between Gomez and Consuela, Don Xavier's daughter. Their families were said to have known each other since the time of the Spanish inquisition. According to Morticia in the 1991 film, both Mother and Father Addams later died in the hands of an angry mob.

Present time

In Wednesday, Gomez and Morticia both attended Nevermore Academy for their high school, and that is where they met in 1997.

In The Addams Family (TV Series) and The New Addams Family, Granny Frump and Grandmama had planned to marry Morticia's older sister Ophelia Frump to Gomez, but the plan failed when Gomez fell in love with Morticia instead. Beforehand, Morticia had been dating Gomez' cousin Cousin Vlad, since they had gone to the same high school, and Gomez and Morticia had first met at a funeral, but only gotten to know each other better around the time of Ophelia and Gomez's matchmaking.

After they married at the age of 22, they had three children: Wednesday Addams, Pugsley Addams, and later, in Addams Family Values, Pubert Addams. There were also two other children in the Halloween special named Wednesday Jr. Addams and Pugsley Jr. Addams, but they are often not considered canon.

They live in the crumbling Addams Family mansion with their butler, Lurch, who had presumably been in the family for a long time. His father, Father Lurch, a Dr. Frankenstein-like character, put him together and wanted him to be a jockey, and he has a very smothering mother by the name of Mother Lurch. Gomez said that Lurch has the heart of an Addams and it is implied to be literal. Lurch apparently came from a long line of similar looking, hulking people. in the 2019 film, Lurch was a former inmate at the insane asylum that became the family mansion.

Another member of the household is Thing (or his full name, Thing T. Thing). Though he is sometimes portrayed as having been a hand creature born from a long line of hands (a photograph of his parents appears in the 1964 series, as a female hand holding a male hand), other portrayals have him as a disembodied hand, possibly of a member of a family. Indeed, in the original cartoons, Thing was shown to be a creature with a body who often appears in the peripherals of the illustrations. He then became an arm and later on, only a hand.

Grandmama's Branch

The oldest known ancestor from Grandmama's side of the family was her great-great-great-grandmother Slice, who sharpened guillotines and was called 'the belle of the French Revolution' in 1789-1799.

Not much is known about her branch of the family, but it was known that she came from a family of witches. Her mother was presumably called Mooma, who would run her kids out of town if they ever got too big for their brooms, while her father was presumably Grandpa Slurp, who had two heads: with a bucktooth in one head, and a receding chin on the other.

She was also known to have two siblings: Uncle Jester, a zany, trouble-making jester who resembled Fester (and who she greatly disliked), and Great Auntie Sloom, who was looked at as a family elder who presided over the family traditions (such as the Mazurka). It can be inferred, then, that Grandmama's family and the main Addams family have their traditions intertwined.

She had a dark complexion (in the original illustrations and the 2020s films) and was known to have gone to a high school named Swamptown High with Granny Frump. In the 2020s film, she often travels the world and has an Old World, Eastern-European accent, the first iteration that showed her to be of a non-American origin.

The Frump Branch

Morticia's great-great-great-Aunt Singe was said to be burned during the Salem Witch Trials of 1892-1893, placing her as the oldest known ancestor of the Frump family. Another possible relative from this time would be Great-Aunt Esther.

Morticia was known to have a grandfather named Grandpa Droop, who gave her stock certicifactes for her twelfth birthday, implying they were rich. He may presumably be the father of Morticia's father, Grandpa Frump or her mother, Granny Frump. Grandpa and Granny had fallen in love because Fester (here as Grandpa's brother, in the 1964 series) shot the arrow (and the gun) that brought them together. They had two children: Ophelia Frump and Morticia.

Granny was a witch and presumably, Morticia's ancestors were also witches. Because of Morticia's anti-social tendencies, Granny had to homeschool her and taught her everything. Morticia has an assortment of cousins with eccentric behaviors, such as the sisters Cousin Melancholia and Cousin Catastrophia, and Cousin Pretensia.

[ltwilliammowett]

Moon Lightning, by Jan de Quelery (1957-)

On the left ; the ship "Beschermer" 50- gun ship of the line built in Amsterdam for the Admiralty of Amsterdam . On the right ; the ship "Walcheren" 60- gun ship built on the VOC yard in Middelburg 1660

[illustratus]

The Battle of Texel 1673 by Jan de Quelery

[siena-sevenwits]

Soaked in Seaweed: or, Upset in the Ocean. (An Old-fashioned Sea Story)

by Stephen Leacock

It was in August in 1867 that I stepped on board the deck of the Saucy Sally, lying in dock at Gravesend, to fill the berth of second mate.

Let me first say a word about myself.

I was a tall, handsome young fellow, squarely and powerfully built, bronzed by the sun and the moon (and even copper-coloured in spots from the effect of the stars), and with a face in which honesty, intelligence, and exceptional brain power were combined with Christianity, simplicity, and modesty.

As I stepped on the deck I could not help a slight feeling of triumph, as I caught sight of my sailor-like features reflected in a tar-barrel that stood beside the mast, while a little later I could scarcely repress a sense of gratification as I noticed them reflected again in a bucket of bilge water.

“Welcome on board, Mr. Blowhard,” called out Captain Bilge, stepping out of the binnacle and shaking hands across the taffrail.

I saw before me a fine sailor-like man of from thirty to sixty, clean-shaven, except for an enormous pair of whiskers, a heavy beard, and a thick moustache, powerful in build, and carrying his beam well aft, in a pair of broad duck trousers across the back of which there would have been room to write a history of the British Navy.

Beside him were the first and third mates, both of them being quiet men of poor stature, who looked at Captain Bilge with what seemed to me an apprehensive expression in their eyes.

The vessel was on the eve of departure. Her deck presented that scene of bustle and alacrity dear to the sailor’s heart. Men were busy nailing up the masts, hanging the bowsprit over the side, varnishing the lee-scuppers and pouring hot tar down the companion-way.

Captain Bilge, with a megaphone to his lips, kept calling out to the men in his rough sailor fashion:

“Now, then, don’t over-exert yourselves, gentlemen. Remember, please, that we have plenty of time. Keep out of the sun as much as you can. Step carefully in the rigging there, Jones; I fear it’s just a little high for you. Tut, tut, Williams, don’t get yourself so dirty with that tar, you won’t look fit to be seen.”

I stood leaning over the gaff of the mainsail and thinking—yes, thinking, dear reader, of my mother. I hope that you will think none the less of me for that. Whenever things look dark, I lean up against something and think of mother. If they get positively black, I stand on one leg and think of father. After that I can face anything.

Did I think, too, of another, younger than mother and fairer than father? Yes, I did. “Bear up, darling,” I had whispered as she nestled her head beneath my oilskins and kicked out backward with one heel in the agony of her girlish grief, “in five years the voyage will be over, and after three more like it, I shall come back with money enough to buy a second-hand fishing-net and settle down on shore.”

Meantime the ship’s preparations were complete. The masts were all in position, the sails nailed up, and men with axes were busily chopping away the gangway.

“All ready?” called the Captain.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Then hoist the anchor in board and send a man down with the key to open the bar.”

Opening the bar! the last sad rite of departure. How often in my voyages have I seen it; the little group of men soon to be exiled from their home, standing about with saddened faces, waiting to see the man with the key open the bar—held there by some strange fascination.

Next morning with a fair wind astern we had buzzed around the corner of England and were running down the Channel.

I know no finer sight, for those who have never seen it, than the English Channel. It is the highway of the world. Ships of all nations are passing up and down, Dutch, Scotch, Venezuelan, and even American.

Chinese junks rush to and fro. Warships, motor yachts, icebergs, and lumber rafts are everywhere. If I add to this fact that so thick a fog hangs over it that it is entirely hidden from sight, my readers can form some idea of the majesty of the scene.

We had now been three days at sea. My first sea-sickness was wearing off, and I thought less of father.

On the third morning Captain Bilge descended to my cabin.

“Mr. Blowhard,” he said, “I must ask you to stand double watches.”

“What is the matter?” I inquired.

“The two other mates have fallen overboard,” he said uneasily, and avoiding my eye.

I contented myself with saying, “Very good, sir,” but I could not help thinking it a trifle odd that both the mates should have fallen overboard in the same night.

Surely there was some mystery in this.

Two mornings later the Captain appeared at the breakfast-table with the same shifting and uneasy look in his eye.

“Anything wrong, sir?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered, trying to appear at ease and twisting a fried egg to and fro between his fingers with such nervous force as almost to break it in two—“I regret to say that we have lost the bosun.”

“The bosun!” I cried.

“Yes,” said Captain Bilge more quietly, “he is overboard. I blame myself for it, partly. It was early this morning. I was holding him up in my arms to look at an iceberg, and, quite accidentally I assure you—I dropped him overboard.”

“Captain Bilge,” I asked, “have you taken any steps to recover him?”

“Not as yet,” he replied uneasily.

I looked at him fixedly, but said nothing.

Ten days passed.

The mystery thickened. On Thursday two men of the starboard watch were reported missing. On Friday the carpenter’s assistant disappeared. On the night of Saturday a circumstance occurred which, slight as it was, gave me some clue as to what was happening.

As I stood at the wheel about midnight, I saw the Captain approach in the darkness carrying the cabin-boy by the hind leg. The lad was a bright little fellow, whose merry disposition had already endeared him to me, and I watched with some interest to see what the Captain would do to him. Arrived at the stern of the vessel, Captain Bilge looked cautiously around a moment and then dropped the boy into the sea. For a brief instant the lad’s head appeared in the phosphorus of the waves. The Captain threw a boot at him, sighed deeply, and went below.

Here then was the key to the mystery! The Captain was throwing the crew overboard. Next morning we met at breakfast as usual.

“Poor little Williams has fallen overboard,” said the Captain, seizing a strip of ship’s bacon and tearing at it with his teeth as if he almost meant to eat it.

“Captain,” I said, greatly excited, stabbing at a ship’s loaf in my agitation with such ferocity as almost to drive my knife into it—“You threw that boy overboard!”

“I did,” said Captain Bilge, grown suddenly quiet, “I threw them all over and intend to throw the rest. Listen, Blowhard, you are young, ambitious, and trustworthy. I will confide in you.”

Perfectly calm now, he stepped to a locker, rummaged in it a moment, and drew out a faded piece of yellow parchment, which he spread on the table. It was a map or chart. In the centre of it was a circle. In the middle of the circle was a small dot and a letter T, while at one side of the map was a letter N, and against it on the other side a letter S.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Can you not guess?” queried Captain Bilge. “It is a desert island.”

“Ah!” I rejoined with a sudden flash of intuition, “and N is for North and S is for South.”

“Blowhard,” said the Captain, striking the table with such force as to cause a loaf of ship’s bread to bounce up and down three or four times, “you’ve struck it. That part of it had not yet occurred to me.”

“And the letter T?” I asked.

“The treasure, the buried treasure,” said the Captain, and turning the map over he read from the back of it—“The point T indicates the spot where the treasure is buried under the sand; it consists of half a million Spanish dollars, and is buried in a brown leather dress-suit case.”

“And where is the island?” I inquired, mad with excitement.

“That I do not know,” said the Captain. “I intend to sail up and down the parallels of latitude until I find it.”

“And meantime?”

“Meantime, the first thing to do is to reduce the number of the crew so as to have fewer hands to divide among. Come, come,” he added in a burst of frankness which made me love the man in spite of his shortcomings, “will you join me in this? We’ll throw them all over, keeping the cook to the last, dig up the treasure, and be rich for the rest of our lives.”

Reader, do you blame me if I said yes? I was young, ardent, ambitious, full of bright hopes and boyish enthusiasm.

“Captain Bilge,” I said, putting my hand in his, “I am yours.”

“Good,” he said, “now go forward to the forecastle and get an idea what the men are thinking.”

I went forward to the men’s quarters—a plain room in the front of the ship, with only a rough carpet on the floor, a few simple arm-chairs, writing-desks, spittoons of a plain pattern, and small brass beds with blue-and-green screens. It was Sunday morning, and the men were mostly sitting about in their dressing-gowns.

They rose as I entered and curtseyed.

“Sir,” said Tompkins, the bosun’s mate, “I think it my duty to tell you that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among the men.”

Several of the men nodded.

“They don’t like the way the men keep going overboard,” he continued, his voice rising to a tone of uncontrolled passion. “It is positively absurd, sir, and if you will allow me to say so, the men are far from pleased.”

“Tompkins,” I said sternly, “you must understand that my position will not allow me to listen to mutinous language of this sort.”

I returned to the Captain. “I think the men mean mutiny,” I said.

“Good,” said Captain Bilge, rubbing his hands, “that will get rid of a lot of them, and of course,” he added musingly, looking out of the broad old-fashioned port-hole at the stern of the cabin, at the heaving waves of the South Atlantic, “I am expecting pirates at any time, and that will take out quite a few of them. However”—and here he pressed the bell for a cabin-boy—“kindly ask Mr. Tompkins to step this way.”

“Tompkins,” said the Captain as the bosun’s mate entered, “be good enough to stand on the locker and stick your head through the stern port-hole, and tell me what you think of the weather.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the tar with a simplicity which caused us to exchange a quiet smile.

Tompkins stood on the locker and put his head and shoulders out of the port.

Taking a leg each we pushed him through. We heard him plump into the sea.

“Tompkins was easy,” said Captain Bilge. “Excuse me as I enter his death in the log.”

“Yes,” he continued presently, “it will be a great help if they mutiny. I suppose they will, sooner or later. It’s customary to do so. But I shall take no step to precipitate it until we have first fallen in with pirates. I am expecting them in these latitudes at any time. Meantime, Mr. Blowhard,” he said, rising, “if you can continue to drop overboard one or two more each week, I shall feel extremely grateful.”

Three days later we rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered upon the inky waters of the Indian Ocean. Our course lay now in zigzags and, the weather being favourable, we sailed up and down at a furious rate over a sea as calm as glass.

On the fourth day a pirate ship appeared. Reader, I do not know if you have ever seen a pirate ship. The sight was one to appal the stoutest heart. The entire ship was painted black, a black flag hung at the masthead, the sails were black, and on the deck people dressed all in black walked up and down arm-in-arm. The words “Pirate Ship” were painted in white letters on the bow. At the sight of it our crew were visibly cowed. It was a spectacle that would have cowed a dog.

The two ships were brought side by side. They were then lashed tightly together with bag string and binder twine, and a gang plank laid between them. In a moment the pirates swarmed upon our deck, rolling their eyes, gnashing their teeth and filing their nails.

Then the fight began. It lasted two hours—with fifteen minutes off for lunch. It was awful. The men grappled with one another, kicked one another from behind, slapped one another across the face, and in many cases completely lost their temper and tried to bite one another. I noticed one gigantic fellow brandishing a knotted towel, and striking right and left among our men, until Captain Bilge rushed at him and struck him flat across the mouth with a banana skin.

At the end of two hours, by mutual consent, the fight was declared a draw. The points standing at sixty-one and a half against sixty-two.

The ships were unlashed, and with three cheers from each crew, were headed on their way.

“Now, then,” said the Captain to me aside, “let us see how many of the crew are sufficiently exhausted to be thrown overboard.”

He went below. In a few minutes he reappeared, his face deadly pale. “Blowhard,” he said, “the ship is sinking. One of the pirates (sheer accident, of course, I blame no one) has kicked a hole in the side. Let us sound the well.”

We put our ear to the ship’s well. It sounded like water.

The men were put to the pumps and worked with the frenzied effort which only those who have been drowned in a sinking ship can understand.

At six p.m. the well marked one half an inch of water, at nightfall three-quarters of an inch, and at daybreak, after a night of unremitting toil, seven-eighths of an inch.

By noon of the next day the water had risen to fifteen-sixteenths of an inch, and on the next night the sounding showed thirty-one thirty-seconds of an inch of water in the hold. The situation was desperate. At this rate of increase few, if any, could tell where it would rise to in a few days.

That night the Captain called me to his cabin. He had a book of mathematical tables in front of him, and great sheets of vulgar fractions littered the floor on all sides.

“The ship is bound to sink,” he said, “in fact, Blowhard, she is sinking. I can prove it. It may be six months or it may take years, but if she goes on like this, sink she must. There is nothing for it but to abandon her.”

That night, in the dead of darkness, while the crew were busy at the pumps, the Captain and I built a raft.

Unobserved we cut down the masts, chopped them into suitable lengths, laid them crosswise in a pile and lashed them tightly together with bootlaces.

Hastily we threw on board a couple of boxes of food and bottles of drinking fluid, a sextant, a chronometer, a gas-meter, a bicycle pump and a few other scientific instruments. Then taking advantage of a roll in the motion of the ship, we launched the raft, lowered ourselves upon a line, and under cover of the heavy dark of a tropical night, we paddled away from the doomed vessel.

The break of day found us a tiny speck on the Indian Ocean. We looked about as big as this (.).

In the morning, after dressing, and shaving as best we could, we opened our box of food and drink.

Then came the awful horror of our situation.

One by one the Captain took from the box the square blue tins of canned beef which it contained. We counted fifty-two in all. Anxiously and with drawn faces we watched until the last can was lifted from the box. A single thought was in our minds. When the end came the Captain stood up on the raft with wild eyes staring at the sky.

“The can-opener!” he shrieked, “just Heaven, the can-opener.” He fell prostrate.

Meantime, with trembling hands, I opened the box of bottles. It contained lager beer bottles, each with a patent tin top. One by one I took them out. There were fifty-two in all. As I withdrew the last one and saw the empty box before me, I shroke out—“The thing! the thing! oh, merciful Heaven! The thing you open them with!”

I fell prostrate upon the Captain.

We awoke to find ourselves still a mere speck upon the ocean. We felt even smaller than before.

Over us was the burnished copper sky of the tropics. The heavy, leaden sea lapped the sides of the raft. All about us was a litter of corn beef cans and lager beer bottles. Our sufferings in the ensuing days were indescribable. We beat and thumped at the cans with our fists. Even at the risk of spoiling the tins for ever we hammered them fiercely against the raft. We stamped on them, bit at them and swore at them. We pulled and clawed at the bottles with our hands, and chipped and knocked them against the cans, regardless even of breaking the glass and ruining the bottles.

It was futile.

Then day after day we sat in moody silence, gnawed with hunger, with nothing to read, nothing to smoke, and practically nothing to talk about.

On the tenth day the Captain broke silence.

“Get ready the lots, Blowhard,” he said. “It’s got to come to that.”

“Yes,” I answered drearily, “we’re getting thinner every day.”

Then, with the awful prospect of cannibalism before us, we drew lots.

I prepared the lots and held them to the Captain. He drew the longer one.

“Which does that mean,” he asked, trembling between hope and despair. “Do I win?”

“No, Bilge,” I said sadly, “you lose.”

But I mustn’t dwell on the days that followed—the long quiet days of lazy dreaming on the raft, during which I slowly built up my strength, which had been shattered by privation. They were days, dear reader, of deep and quiet peace, and yet I cannot recall them without shedding a tear for the brave man who made them what they were.

It was on the fifth day after that I was awakened from a sound sleep by the bumping of the raft against the shore. I had eaten perhaps overheartily, and had not observed the vicinity of land.

Before me was an island, the circular shape of which, with its low, sandy shore, recalled at once its identity.

“The treasure island,” I cried, “at last I am rewarded for all my heroism.”

In a fever of haste I rushed to the centre of the island. What was the sight that confronted me? A great hollow scooped in the sand, an empty dress-suit case lying beside it, and on a ship’s plank driven deep into the sand, the legend, “Saucy Sally, October, 1867.” So! the miscreants had made good the vessel, headed it for the island of whose existence they must have learned from the chart we so carelessly left upon the cabin table, and had plundered poor Bilge and me of our well-earned treasure!

Sick with the sense of human ingratitude I sank upon the sand.

The island became my home.

There I eked out a miserable existence, feeding on sand and gravel and dressing myself in cactus plants. Years passed. Eating sand and mud slowly undermined my robust constitution. I fell ill. I died. I buried myself.

Would that others who write sea stories would do as much.

[der-karibisch-heyder]

Caribbean Currency 2

Continuing from the last post I made.

(Pictured: Florentine Guilder from 1341)

So I did a bit more reading around, mostly in the interest of grasping living wages and cost of living in the 17th and 18th centuries. In doing so I came across more in depth information about Dutch currency beyond the Lion Dollar, namely the Guilder.

Guilder, which is the English term for Gulden, which is German and Dutch for just “golden”, an informal term for “gold penny”. It is largely considered interchangeable with the Florin, as the currency was widely used all across the reach of the Holy Roman Empire. Anyway.

A Guilder was essentially worth half a Lion Dollar. Recall earlier, a Lion Dollar is worth between 4 and 5 Shillings in English currency. It takes 20 shillings to make a pound, thus 4 to 5 Lion Dollars to make a pound. Hence, it takes about 10 guilders to make a pound, so a Guilder is roughly equal to 1/10th the value of the pound or English Guinea. This is all noteworthy because the Guilder was the long accepted go-to currency for foreign reserves, likely due to its equal value and standing with the Florin and its widespread use across central Europe.

In reading on all this, I too found the values of ships were often rated in tonnage. Specifically about 20 pounds to the ton. Using some ships in Devil’s Eye for a quick reference...

La Demonia Roja, a massive Manilla Galleon, weighs in at 1000 tons of storage, giving it a massive value of 20,000 pounds.

The Barracuda, a simple schooner, weighs in at a mere 100 tons, giving it the value of 2000 pounds.

The Barracuda’s long standing rival and competitor from their piracy days, the Dutch vessel Diantha, being a converted Fluyt (a ship with a unique design meant to maximize tonnage without taking up too much area), weighs in with 400 tons for a value of 8000 pounds.

The HMS Cavalier, a 6th Rate warship oared frigate captained by an old former friend of Ravyn Hurley’s father, Post-Captain Jack Davenport, weighs in at 300 tons for a value of 6000 pounds.

For comparison’s sake, the annual wage of the First Lord of the Treasury of England was 4000 pounds. It’s a little sad that Ravyn’s pride of a ship is worth less than that, but such is life. Middle class wages were expected to be anywhere between 40 and 75 pounds a year, which is about what would be expected for a merchant trader who owned a ship. Given the costs of a ship and hiring a crew to captain and sail the ship, the loans must be outrageous. Despite that, a ship was a long term investment that often paid for itself several dozen times over several decades of use, which is why piracy for stealing such vessels was a lucrative business to begin with.

Other notable wages and fees of the 17th and 18th centuries include:

Coach rides were 5 pence per mile if you rode inside the coach, and 2 pence per mile if you rode on the outside.

River ferrying was about 3 pence per mile.

A cheap shared bed at an inn would cost you 2 pence a night - but an unfurnished room for rent would only cost 1 shilling a week, so it was actually cheaper to pay by week if you were staying over long term. (Things like this are again, why Ravyn needs Robert around to manage the crew’s finances!)

Servants only made between 2 and 5 pounds a year in earnings, but their estate would pay for their clothing, food, and board, which were the most common and costly expenses of living at the time. A more experienced housemaid could make up to 8 pounds a year, and an exceptional housekeeper could make up to 15 pounds a year.

Lastly, it was generally assumed anyone making 500 pounds or more a year were considered wealthy to some degree or another. I don’t know how far up one must go the wealth ladder to be considered nobility or aristocracy, though.

As for the money the Heyder family pulls in, I’m still working that out. I’m imagining Robert having a fairly large amount of disposable income, but not enough to where he can just liberally throw money at any and every problem he comes across. Otherwise it would start begging some questions. I’ll get back to that later.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.9

141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han dynasty of China. 1009 – First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg. 1226 – Khwarazmian sultan Jalal ad-Din conquers the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. 1230 – Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa. 1500 – The fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. 1701 – Safavid troops retreat from Basra, ending a three-year occupation. 1765 – After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually died by suicide. 1776 – The Wealth of Nations by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith is published. 1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. 1811 – Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí. 1815 – Francis Ronalds describes the first battery-operated clock in the Philosophical Magazine. 1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally. 1842 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera composers. 1842 – The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush. 1847 – Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz. 1862 – American Civil War: USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (rebuilt from the engines and lower hull of the USS Merrimack) fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships. 1908 – Inter Milan was founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from A.C. Milan. 1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies. 1942 – World War II: Dutch East Indies unconditionally surrendered to the Japanese forces in Kalijati, Subang, West Java, and the Japanese completed their Dutch East Indies campaign. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia. 1945 – World War II: A coup d'état by Japanese forces in French Indochina removes the French from power. 1945 – World War II: Allied forces carry out firebombing over Tokyo, destroying most of the capital and killing over 100,000 civilians. 1946 – Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more. 1954 – McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly. 1956 – Soviet forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy. 1957 – The 8.6 Mw  Andreanof Islands earthquake shakes the Aleutian Islands, causing over $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami. 1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York. 1960 – Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis. 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a dog and a human dummy, and demonstrating that the Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight. 1967 – Trans World Airlines Flight 553 crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing 26 people. 1974 – The Mars 7 Flyby bus releases the descent module too early, missing Mars. 1976 – Forty-two people die in the Cavalese cable car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date. 1977 – The Hanafi Siege: In a 39-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings. 1978 – President Soeharto inaugurated Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java. 1987 – Chrysler announces its acquisition of American Motors Corporation 1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp: Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia are treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permits Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day. As the comet made its closest approach to Earth on March 26, all 39 active members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed ritual mass suicide over a period of three days, in the belief that their spirits would be teleported into an alien spacecraft flying inside the comet's tail. 1997 – The Notorious B.I.G. is murdered in Los Angeles after attending the Soul Train Music Awards. He is gunned down leaving an after party at the Petersen Automotive Museum. His murder remains unsolved. 2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights. 2012 – A truce between the Salvadoran government and gangs in the country goes into effect when 30 gang leaders are transferred to lower security prisons.

[velvialifestylesummit]

As happened to the recalibration of Eastern Ukraine as the apocalyptic redline for the projected disintegration of Russia, the perennial trespassing of warships from NATO to trigger the apocalyptic redline for the strait of Taiwan may be escalated to reclaim the maritime autonomy of Taiwan leading to the full independence of the longstanding sanctioned island of Formosa, this will eventually reactivate the political implosion of Beijing which is the apocalyptic redline of China for its continental disintegration. This will resolve the economic siege of Russia and China facing the final presidency of Biden to launch the crucial warzone in the strait of Taiwan instead of losing the crucial moment of America to reverse its fading momentum in 2024. Once the untenable redline of China is detonated by the maturity of WWIII through naval warfare in the strait, the final destiny of Taiwan will be declared by the judgement of WWIII in 2024. It is truly the momentous timing for America to fulfill its hegemonic recalibration through WWIII which should be launched by the remaining presidency of Biden and the full coordination of Obama. It is the ultimatum from the heart of Asia Pacific to rewrite the hijacked destiny of Taiwan and the continental destiny of China for WWIII in 2024. This is the apocalyptic passage of WWIII to purge the longstanding repression inflicted on the people of China for the debacle of CCP in Beijing. It is the next level of naval warfare to reclaim the maritime passage in the strait. The heavily thwarted economy of China is unlikely to sustain the apocalyptic impact of WWIII. It is the ultimatum for the outgoing president of America and NATO to resolve the stalemated war zone in the strait of Taiwan. Apparently the strait war of Taiwan to be tackled by the use of advanced naval missiles such as the Neptune missile of Ukraine is necessary for the hegemonic projection of NATO to oust the naval blockade of China. The recalibration of Taiwan Strait as the war zone for advanced naval weapons including hypersonic missiles shall be admitted at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the parliament of EU for the maturity of WWIII in 2024. It is the tactical projection of NATO to wipe out the hijacked maritime passage of Taiwan through naval missiles from destroyers of Dutch and Germany in echoing the maritime provocation of China in the looming Strait War of Taiwan recently. The end of CCP comes from the Strait War of Taiwan which is the untenable redline of China.

[roshmirani]

Submarines, warships capable of moving both above and below the surface

This is a unique ability among warships, and submarines are very different in design and appearance from surface ships. U-boats first became an important element of naval warfare in World War I (1914-1918), when Germany used them to destroy surface merchant shipping. In such attacks, submarines used their main weapon, self-propelled underwater missiles known as torpedoes. Submarines played a similar role on a larger scale during World War II (1939-1945), in both the Atlantic (on the German side) and Pacific (on the American side). In the 1960s, nuclear submarines became important strategic weapons platforms because they could remain submerged for months and launch long-range nuclear missiles without surfacing.

 Nuclear attack submarines, equipped with torpedoes, anti-ship missiles, and anti-submarine missiles, also became an important element of naval warfare. Below is a history of the development of submarines from the 17th century to the present. For the history of other warships, see Warships. For the armament of modern attack and strategic submarines, see Missiles and missile systems. Early hand-operated submarines The first serious discussion of a "submarine", that is, a vehicle that could be controlled underwater, appeared in 1578 from the pen of William Bourne, an English mathematician and author of naval books. Bourne proposed a totally enclosed boat that could be submerged in water and rowed. It consisted of a wooden frame covered in waterproof leather.

 A vice would have to be used to shrink the sides to reduce its volume and allow it to sink. Bourne did not design his boat himself, and the construction of the first submarine is usually credited to the Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel (or Cornelius van Drebbel). Repeated attempts were made on the River Thames in England between 1620 and 1624, and they succeeded in steering the vessel to depths of 12 to 15 feet (4 to 5 meters) below the surface. It is said that King James I took one for short trips.

 Drebbel's submarine was similar to the one proposed by Bourne in that the outer hull was made of greased leather over a wooden frame. Oars projected from the sides and were sealed by tight-fitting leather flaps, providing propulsion both on the surface and underwater. Drebbel's first boat was followed by two larger boats built on the same principle.

[jayjmorrissey]

Submarines, warships capable of moving

This is a unique ability among warships, and submarines are very different in design and appearance from surface ships. U-boats first became an important element of naval warfare in World War I (1914-1918), when Germany used them to destroy surface merchant shipping. In such attacks, submarines used their main weapon, self-propelled underwater missiles known as torpedoes. Submarines played a similar role on a larger scale during World War II (1939-1945), in both the Atlantic (on the German side) and Pacific (on the American side). In the 1960s, nuclear submarines became important strategic weapons platforms because they could remain submerged for months and launch long-range nuclear missiles without surfacing.

 Nuclear attack submarines, equipped with torpedoes, anti-ship missiles, and anti-submarine missiles, also became an important element of naval warfare. Below is a history of the development of submarines from the 17th century to the present. For the history of other warships, see Warships. For the armament of modern attack and strategic submarines, see Missiles and missile systems. Early hand-operated submarines The first serious discussion of a "submarine", that is, a vehicle that could be controlled underwater, appeared in 1578 from the pen of William Bourne, an English mathematician and author of naval books. Bourne proposed a totally enclosed boat that could be submerged in water and rowed. It consisted of a wooden frame covered in waterproof leather.

 A vice would have to be used to shrink the sides to reduce its volume and allow it to sink. Bourne did not design his boat himself, and the construction of the first submarine is usually credited to the Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel (or Cornelius van Drebbel). Repeated attempts were made on the River Thames in England between 1620 and 1624, and they succeeded in steering the vessel to depths of 12 to 15 feet (4 to 5 meters) below the surface. It is said that King James I took one for short trips.