History of seafaring

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The Duvensee paddle

The history of seafaring can only be presented here in excerpts; Seafaring has served people to move across the seas for around 120,000 years.

Early days and beginning of seafaring

  • about 120,000–60,000 BC Chr .: Middle Paleolithic : simple watercraft may have been used as early as the Middle Paleolithic ; this has not yet been proven with certainty.
  • about 70,000-10,000 BC Chr .: Upper Palaeolithic : First references such as bone harpoons and fishhooks (around 20,000 BC) come from the younger Paleolithic in Europe . However, they only document fishing, which can also have taken place from the bank.
  • about 40,000-10,000 BC Chr .: America : In the last Ice Age people immigrated to the New World via the Bering Strait . At that time this was not a strait of the sea, but a more than 100 kilometers wide land bridge connecting Siberia and America. As the ice melted , it was flooded; it has been crossed several times by seafaring tribes. According to more recent theories, the first immigrants immigrated by boat along the coast of East Asia via Alaska to the west coast of America and came along this relatively quickly to South America .
  • around 40,000 BC Chr .: Australia : The earliest traces of settlement on the continent come from this time . During the last ice age there was almost a complete land connection from Southeast Asia to Australia due to the low water level. Only at today's Makassar Strait and the Timor Trench was it interrupted by an ocean about 100 km wide. The first settlers in Australia must have overcome this waterway on their migration and can be described as the first known seafarers .
  • around 30,000 BC Chr .: Oceania : In the Pacific , besides Australia, human remains are found on the Bismarck Archipelago and on Buka in the northern Solomon Islands . These are mainly remains of fire and mussel shells. These people, too, must have covered short stretches of the sea with watercraft.
  • around 21,000 BC In the last Ice Age Japan was connected to Siberia via Sakhalin , to Korea via the Strait of Tsushima and to mainland China via Okinawa and Formosa . Coastal shipping is proven for that time. Off the coast of Honschu , obsidian is found on the island of Oschima in the Kanto plain , which comes from the island of Kōzu-shima , 60 kilometers away .
  • about 20,000-10,000 BC Chr .: India : The cultural layers of the Upper Palaeolithic are mainly found on the edges of large rivers. From this time at the latest, people began to move their settlement areas from steppes and mountain slopes to inland waters.
  • about 15,000-10,000 BC Chr .: China: Towards the end of the last ice age, an early hunting and fishing culture existed in the north of the country and in what is now Mongolia in the then still numerous inland waters. Harpoons and shell remains from this period have been found.
  • around 12,000 BC Chr .: Upper Egypt : On the Nile near Abd el-Quadir and Jebel Sahaba, early settlements of hunting and fishing cultures are found. The importance of fishing is particularly evident in the finds in the Catfish Cave (Wels cave).
  • around 10,000 BC Chr .: Siberia : The oldest harpoons and fishing nets of this area are found near Lake Baikal . They show that at that time people in southern Siberia largely made a living from fishing.
  • from about 10,000 BC Chr .: Northern Europe : After the last ice age subsided, people followed the big game migrating north. On the northern European coast, hunter-gatherer cultures are developing that mainly feed on fish and mussels. These people settle in the coastal areas of Scandinavia , which will become ice-free from the 8th millennium. They build the first boats in Northern Europe with skins over a frame made of wood or pieces of antler .
  • about 9500 BC Chr .: Northern Europe : The remains of fishing nets can be dated from southern Finnish peat bogs . The Star Carr paddle , which was found near Scarborough on the North Sea coast of Central England in 1948, dates from the same period . This is one of the oldest references to early boat building. Somewhat younger is the Duvensee paddle found in Schleswig-Holstein , which was made around 6500 BC. Was carved.
  • 9th Jtd. v. Chr .: Mediterranean : Around this time the people in the Mediterranean area should have crossed short stretches of the open sea with watercraft. On the island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea and on Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea , microliths from the early Mesolithic period from the mainland have been found.
  • around 8300 BC Chr .: Asia Minor : Already in the early Neolithic , from the south coast, today's Pamphylia , obsidian was traded from Central Asia Minor to Syria and Palestine . The previously deserted Cyprus is being settled.

Start of ocean shipping

  • 7000 BC Chr .: Around this time people begin to build watercraft for the first time with which the high seas can be sailed. They are probably already plank boats or larger skin boats. Cyprus , Crete , Sardinia , Ireland and also the Canary Islands show the first traces of settlement from this period. From then on, obsidian is also regularly brought from Milas to Thessaly . Also in the early Neolithic , emery was traded for stone polishing and making bowls from the island of Thera . Targeted deep-sea fishing also begins a little outside of visual contact with the coast.
  • about 6000 BC BC: Knives made of obsidian are used for the first time in Cyprus . This volcanic rock does not occur on the island and thus represents the first reliable indication of the existence of overseas trade from the mainland to the island. An 8,000 year old dugout canoe is found in the northeast of Nigeria . In 1998, scientists from Bremerhaven , the University of Frankfurt am Main and Nigeria recovered the well-preserved boat. It is 8.40 m long, 0.50 m wide and is exhibited in the city of Maiduguri in its own museum after its conservation . It is the oldest surviving watercraft in Africa to date.
    Egyptian sailing ship (mural around 1422–1411 BC)
  • about 5000 BC Chr .: Egypt : The oldest known ship representations come from Hierakonpolis . They show a papyrus ship with a raised stern , a rudder and some hut-like structures. Ships with a mast and a large square sail were used primarily for voyages on the Nile , but also for voyages across the Mediterranean and the Red Sea . The sail was already pivoted so that the ships could sail even in sideways wind. The representation of a ship on a funeral urn from Luxor , on which a sail is depicted for the first time , is likely to be almost as old . Japan : From the early Jomon period (5500-3600 BC) a dugout canoe with sewn-on side panels and 6 paddles near Kamo was found . The boat was about six meters long, nearly three feet wide and had blunt ends.
  • around 4800 BC Chr .: Korea : The inhabitants of what is now Busan lived from hunting, fishing and collecting shellfish in the coastal zone. The presence of Japanese pot shards indicates an early trading relationship.
  • around 4500 BC Chr .: Denmark : A dugout canoe is found in Tybrind Bay in the west of the island of Funen , which dates from this time and is one of the oldest known watercraft in Europe today. It is about 8 m long and 0.75 m wide.
  • 4000 BC Chr .: Sardinia : The first traces of settlement go back to the 7th millennium. Cultural relations across the sea can only be established from this period with southern France , Corsica , Italy and as far as Malta . China: In the area of ​​the middle Huang He the Yangshao culture develops , an early peasant culture whose people settle in small towns. Bone harpoons, fish hooks, and fish traps have been found.
  • around 3700 BC Chr .: Korea : The residents in the south already fish deep-sea, mainly for deep-water molluscs, sea ​​lions and whales . There is modest maritime trade with Japan, importing obsidian and shell necklaces.
  • around 3500 BC BC: Middle East : Increased trade between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean region leads to the founding of the first coastal cities in today's Syria , Lebanon and Palestine . Increased sea trade to the west along the coast from Asia Minor to the Aegean Sea and south to Egypt. Mesopotamia: A huge flood leads to the emergence of the Flood , which is reported in the Gilgamesh epic and the Bible .
  • 3000 BC Chr .: Egypt : For the first time, the paddle through the power-efficient in larger ships belt replaced (rowing), this is the first major revolution in the known marine propulsion
Stonehenge
Sea battle between: sea peoples and the armed forces of Ramses III. (1198–1166 BC) Drawing wall relief in the temple of Medinet-Habu / Thebes

1000 BC Chr.

Argonauts on board the Argo, incised drawing around 400 BC On the wall of the Ficoroni-Cista (redrawing)
  • The oldest mentioned longship is the Argo of the Argonauts legend , on which Jason and the Argonauts drove to Colchis to steal the golden fleece .
  • Greek longships were rowing ships that were built by the Greeks as early as the 1st millennium BC. BC, before the development of galleys with several rows of oars . These ships (for example the ship types Pentekonter (fifty rudder) and Triakonter (thirty-eight rudder)) were sometimes of considerable size: the length of a Pentekonter is estimated at 35 to 40 meters.
  • around 950 BC BC: King Solomon (around 960–930), in collaboration with King Hiram I of Tire (969–936), sends a large fleet expedition from the port of Ezjon-Geber at the northern end of the Gulf of Aquabe to the gold country of Ophir , which is probably with the country Punt of the Egyptians is identical. The fleet brings gold , silver , precious stones and rare woods through the Red Sea to Palestine . Are exported copper and iron of Eilat .
  • 900 BC Chr .: England : Remains of early plank boats are found near North Ferriby on the Humber estuary . The constructions of two half dugout canoes with a flat middle section and attached planks are an intermediate form from the dugout canoe to the plank ship with keel and frames . Boats of this type have also been used to transport tin from Cornwall to the mainland.
  • 800 BC Chr .: Greece : beginning of the Greek colonization. Due to a lack of cultivation areas and growing cities and their good maritime knowledge, subsidiary cities are founded. Corinth is the most important sea power in the Greek world and built the best warships at this time.
  • 709 BC BC: Assyria : King Sargon II (722–705) controls the coastal cities of Asia Minor and from Egypt to Syria . The island of Cyprus, which is dependent on trade with the coast, submits to his sovereignty, (stele of Kition). The Assyrian Empire controls all maritime trade from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf .
  • The Greek longships became - probably around 800 BC. BC - the Bireme developed.
  • 700 century BC Chr .: Aigina : Aigina calls Argos for help against an impending invasion of Athens . Together they fend off the Athenians with great losses. Athens played no role at sea for nearly two centuries and has been at constant enmity with Aegina ever since.
  • Egypt : Pharaoh Psammetich I (664–610 BC) keeps a Greek mercenary fleet and promotes Greek trade in his empire. His successor Necho II (609-595 BC) increased the maritime efforts. At his instigation, Phoenician seafarers manage the first circumnavigation of Africa from east to west. The construction of the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea , which has begun, cannot be completed.
  • 600 century BC Chr .: Greece Ship tow: Under Periander , the large ship tow is laid across the Isthmus of Corinth . This diolkos is used not only by merchant ships, but also by warships up to the Trier . It has been in operation for over a thousand years and helps the ships avoid the long detour around the Peloponnese .
  • around 664 BC Chr .: Sea battle : Sea battle in the Ionian Sea: The Corinthian fleet fights against the daughter city of Corfu . It is the first known sea battle in Greek history.
  • around 610 BC Chr .: Athens : The city conquers the island of Salamis in a war of several years with Megara . Then one begins to build sea connections through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus with the Black Sea.
  • It is not clear who first developed the galley type of ship . What is certain, however, is that the Greeks as well as the Phoenicians and Persians came before 600 BC. BC galleys have developed. This is how the sea ​​battle at Salamis was celebrated in 480 BC. . Chr performed with biremes and triremes.
  • Pacific : Beginning of colonization of Polynesia . In a first migration movement from Southeast Asia, the West Polynesian Fiji , Tonga and Samoa islands are settled by the people of the Lapita culture .
  • India : The empire of Magadha on the Ganges becomes the most important state in India. His ruler Bimbisara conquered the city of Campa on the lower reaches of the Ganges. At the time, it was the most important port of transshipment between inland shipping on the Ganges and coastal shipping in the Bay of Bengal . Indians were early shipbuilders. They mainly traveled the Indus and the Ganges.

600 BC Chr. To 400 AD

  • Africa : The Punier Hanno takes a trip through the Strait of Gibraltar on the coast of West Africa. He is supposed to found some settlements with Libyans under Punic suzerainty. The fleet is said to have consisted of sixty ships with several thousand people on board and reaches far south beyond Senegal . They are said to have created seven colonies. Hanno undertakes a research trip further south and returns to a mountain of fire , which he calls the chariot of the gods, for lack of supplies.
  • around 540 BC Chr .: Carthage : The Punians destroy the trading city of Tartessos . Maritime trade now goes west via Gades
  • around 520 BC Chr .: The Punier Himilkon undertakes a research trip to the tin lands of the north. So that this knowledge of the economic possibilities does not become known to the competitors in the West (especially the Greeks), the Punians close the Strait of Gibraltar to all foreign ships without exception and monitor this ban with their fleet. This is how the fantastic reports about the conditions beyond the Pillars of Hercules arise in the eastern Mediterranean .
  • around 538-522 BC Chr .: Polykrates of Samos builds a fleet of 100 warships and establishes a naval rule in the eastern Aegean . Polycrates triumphs over the fleets of Miletus and Lesbos (530 BC) and finally sends half of his fleet to Egypt to help the Persians conquer the country. However, the crews mutinied and turned back and defeated the squadron at home. After the murder of Polykrates by the Persian satraps in Asia Minor (522 BC), the sailing of Samos came to an end again.
  • around 510 BC Chr .: Law of the Sea : The Lex Rhodia , the law of the sea of Rhodes , gradually begins to assert itself in the eastern Mediterranean. It is the first time that a special law of the sea has been created and recorded in writing (no script has survived). The knowledge is based mainly on the fact that it is quoted again and again in Roman and Byzantine law. China: The half-Chinese Yüeh people live in the area south of the mouth of the Jang-tse-kiang and operate river and coastal shipping.
  • 500 BC Chr .: Nautical : According to a report by Herodotus , King Xerxes I pardoned the Achaemenid prince Sataspes , who was sentenced to death, on the condition that he circumnavigated Africa counterclockwise . Sataspes returns unsuccessfully.
  • Herodotus : of Halicarnassus (490–429 BC), the father of historiography , undertakes his great journey. He comes to what is now southern Russia , travels its great rivers, drives up the Nile to Elephantine , comes to Babylon and Sicily .
  • Merchant shipping : Coming from Byzantium , a charter system for merchant ships is developing in the eastern Mediterranean . Several merchants rent a ship with a helmsman, choose a captain from among their number, and give him full authority over the trade. The profit will be divided according to their shares after the trip.
  • Athens : The politician Themistocles (* around 525 BC; † around 459 BC) sees the danger posed by the Persian fleet. With a lot of persuasion he succeeds in getting Athens to build a strong fleet and dock a naval port near Piraeus . 480 BC This bears fruit: the Greeks win the battle of Salamis (see below)
  • 492 BC Chr .: The first Persian campaign : The army of the Persian king Dareios under the general Mardonios advance over the Hellespont ( Dardanelles ) against the Thracians in order to clear the flank for the attack on Attica . The Thracians are fighting back violently. The fleet accompanying the Persian army fails in a storm on Mount Athos . Mardonios therefore breaks off the campaign. Sparta and Athens refuse the requested submission.
  • 490 BC Chr .: The second Persian campaign : The army of Darius under Datis and Artaphernes is crossed directly to Attica. On the way there, Rhodes and Naxos are subjugated. Also Eretria on Evia is conquered and destroyed. The Persians use special horse trucks to transport the cavalry . The Persians undertake the first major, well-described amphibious operation in history. The landing took place in the plain of Marathon . The way to Athens, however, is blocked for the Persians by the Greek army under Miltiades the Younger . The Persians therefore begin to embark again. They are attacked by the Greeks. Among other things, because the cavalry has already been loaded, the Persians suffer a defeat. The Persians then withdraw. To ward off further attacks by the Persians, Athens is now building a strong fleet. The construction will be financed with the income from the Laurion silver mines near Cape Sunion , which has previously been divided among the population.
  • 486 BC Chr .: death of the Persian king Dareios. His son Xerxes I (486-465) begins preparations for another train against Greece .
  • 480 BC Chr .: The third Persian procession : As in the first time, the army on land takes the route over the Hellespont. A large navy of war follows along the coast. The 1,200 warships are accompanied by 3,000 transport ships. With a crew of 100 men per warship and 20 men per transport ship, there are 180,000 sailors and marines. The land army is said to have had the same strength. With this great danger in mind, most of the Greek states submit to the Persians. Few support Athens and Sparta in their decisive battle. For more see battle at Salamis .
  • China : The Wu empire on the lower Jang-tse-kiang subdues the Yüeh people. This is the first time that a people who operate seafaring come under the suzerainty of the Chinese. The Yüeh already maintain sea contacts with the world of the Malays in Indochina and Insulinde .
  • Greek law of the sea : Because of the great importance of sea trade, Athens has its own court for questions of seafaring. An older court in the 5th century BC. BC, the Nautodiken , only met once a year, the Thesmothetes now meet every month.
  • 300 BC Chr .: Greece : After the Corinthian War there is an upswing in sea trade. Although trade between Greece and Etruscans is declining, trade with Carthage , Phenicia and the Black Sea is increasing . Athens moneylenders develop into banks that finance the shipowners .
  • 329 BC Chr .: Transport costs: Land transport is far more expensive than sea transport. It is known from this year that the transport of 100 floor tiles over twelve kilometers by land to Eleusis cost 40 drachmas . The trip to the sea from Aegina to Piraeus only cost two obols . A boat trip from Egypt to the Black Sea cost only two drachmas for a whole family.
  • Pytheas (* around 380 BC; † around 310 BC) from Massilia , Greek navigator, explorer and astronomer, embarks on a sea voyage to Western and Northern Europe from Gades . He comes to the North Sea , goes around the British Isles and reaches Norway or Iceland , which he calls Thule . It gives a good description of these countries and islands.
  • Pirates : The Diadoch Wars have made them prevail again. Each sea area has its own pirate nest.
  • Egypt : King Ptolemy II maintains active trade relations with the Eastern Mediterranean and India. The king obtained iron from the Roman ore deposits on Elba , tin from Cornwall via Massilia and Carthage , silver , copper and gold from the Iberian Peninsula and sulfur from Sicily and the Aeolian Islands . Egypt supplies glass and metal goods to Italy . The fleet chief Timosthenes knows all the ports on the North African coast as far as Gades and the ports in the Red Sea.
  • 200 BC Chr .: The Archimedean principle is discovered by the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes . It reads: The buoyancy of a body is exactly as great as the weight of the medium displaced by the body.
  • 280-221 BC Chr .: Pirates : The wars make the pirate plague unbearable. Mainly people who are to be sold as slaves are wanted. These sell well in Delos , Egypt and Syria . The result is rural exodus and a decline in sea trade.
  • 275 BC Chr .: Canal : Ptolemy II had the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea restored and named it after his wife Arsinoë .
  • 270 BC BC: Ptolemy II calls the seafaring expert Timosthenes from Rhodes to Egypt and appoints him as navigator of the fleet. Timosthenes writes a multi-volume work entitled About the ports . It is the best description of the coast of the time.
  • around 210 BC Chr .: Technology : Philip V of Macedonia had a communication system of optical signal stations and beacons built in the Aegean in order to better control the movements of the Roman squadrons. Carthage does the same in the western Mediterranean.
  • 100 BC Chr .: Pirates : The trade from Syria with the goods of the Far East to Italy increases strongly. Cilician pirates who were previously recruited as mercenaries for wars are increasingly going to piracy on their own account. After the defeat at Magnesia against Rome in the Peace of Apamea (188 BC), Syria had to surrender the majority of its fleet, which was also decisively restricted in its freedom of movement. The Seleucid rulers have no way of stopping the mischief. The political rivals in the eastern Mediterranean show no interest in campaigning for Syria, and Rome is the best buyer of the captured slaves via the market in Delos , as there is a great need for cheap labor. Along with Delos, Side becomes the most important center for pirates and slave traders. It is hardly possible for trade to switch to land routes through Asia Minor , as conditions there are even worse.
  • The first attempts at research into the oceans can be traced back to antiquity; they were closely connected with the exploration of the earth itself. This includes the course of the coast, the positional relationships of the coasts and islands to one another, and the design of the seas.
  • 120-117 BC Chr .: Eudoxos undertakes an exploration trip to India and recognizes the importance of the monsoon winds for sailing in the Indian Ocean . On his return he prepares to circumnavigate Africa , but does not return from this trip. A counterclockwise bypass was hardly possible with the ships of that time because of the many countercurrents. Eudoxus passed on his knowledge of the monsoon winds to Hippalus . In any case, the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea attributes this discovery to Hippalus.
  • around 100 BC Chr .: Knowledge of the monsoon winds in the Indian Ocean means that Mediterranean boatmen are now sailing from the Red Sea to India and back in nine months ( Roman-Indian relations ). So far, such a trip along the coast has taken almost two years. From the Egyptian ports on the Red Sea, Myos Hormos and Berenike , up to 120 ships annually leave for India.
  • around 100 BC Chr .: Greece : The law enacted at this time and titled Lex de piratis persequendis or Lex de provinciis praetoriis contains, among other things. a. Regulations to combat piracy. There is a Greek inscription from Delphi and Knidos .
  • around 100 BC Chr .: Parthian Empire : The Parthians maintain trade with China .
  • around 60 BC Chr .: Science : The philosopher Poseidonios from Syria lives and teaches in Rhodes . He studies cosmology , geography and astronomy and is the first to recognize that the tides of the seas are caused by the moon .
  • 22 BC Chr .: Caesarea Maritima : The city is laid out by Herod the Great (73 BC to 4 AD) as a port for Jerusalem . There is one of the first dry docks there .
  • AD 1–100: India : Buddhism begins to spread across East Asia and China. The Buddha Dipamkara is revered by seafarers as the calmer of the waves , the places where his statues are found are a good signpost of the Buddhists' sea routes.
  • Maldives : Ever since the Greeks and Arabs took the direct sea route with the monsoons over the Indian Ocean , they have also come to this group of islands. The shortest sea route is from the Gulf of Aden through the southern coral islands via the Equatorial Canal to Ceylon . Coins from this period are found in the Maldives.
  • 45–55 AD: Apostle Paul makes three trips to the Gentile mission , during which he often uses the sea route. The first trip goes via Cyprus to Asia Minor , the second from Asia Minor to Macedonia from there via Thessalonica and Athens to Corinth (49–51 AD). The third journey goes through Asia Minor to Ephesus , Macedonia, Corinth to Caesarea and back to Jerusalem .
  • around 150 AD: Fisheries : China : In the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian , fishing and pearl fishing reach such a level that overfishing occurs. Senior official Meng Zhang issued a temporary ban on fishing and pearl diving. Later a temple is built for him for his nature conservation measure.
  • 166 AD: Long-distance trade: China : Roman seafarers pass the Strait of Malacca and make contact with the Chinese imperial court. According to Chinese reports, they bring gifts of ivory , rhinoceros horn and tortoise shell . They pretend to be the envoy of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelianus Antoninus , judging by their gifts, they knew what the Chinese wanted for goods.
    Balahou
  • AD 400: Pacific Ocean : The Marquesas Islands in Polynesia are settled around this time. From there, colonists sail to Tahiti , Hawaii , New Zealand and Easter Island in the centuries that followed .

5th to 9th centuries

10th to 14th centuries

  • 986: America : The first recorded sighting of the New World is made by the Norwegian Bjarni Herjolfson . He got lost in the fog while driving from Iceland to Greenland and has gone off course and is sighting land in the southwest that he did not know, it may have been Newfoundland .
  • 991: England : The English pay 165,000 pounds in gold and silver to the Danes ( Danegeld ) so that they do not plunder the country. Even so, it cannot prevent the Danes from conquering the country. France can only raise £ 45,000 in the same period.
  • 1039: Ship equipment: The iron anchor is used more and more. From this year there is a certificate from Venice that states that the shipowners can borrow an iron anchor for a high rent and that it must be returned after the voyage.
  • 1044: Nautical Science : China : The collection of military technology ( Jing Tsong Yao ) contains the best information about early shipbuilding and nautical science.
  • 1049 Haithabu : The trading city is largely destroyed in the conflict between Denmark and Norway .
  • 1060: Baltic Sea : The Abotrites rule the western Baltic Sea with their ships. They are a constant threat to the Danish port of Schleswig, which Haithabu has replaced in maritime trade with Russia . In Schleswig there is already a guild of sea traders which is headed by an Aldermann ( elder ). The members give each other help against unfair competition , shipwreck, imprisonment , taking oaths in court and in the case of blood revenge .
  • 1070: History : The monk Wilhelm in the Abbey of Jumièges on the Seine writes the history of the Normans from 851 to 1070 for Wilhelm the Conqueror . It is the best description of the Normans' landing in England in 1066; the account is illustrated by the Bayeux Tapestry .
  • 1073: Bremen : The board of directors of the convent school of Bremen, Adam von Bremen writes a book ( Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesia pontificum ) about the Nordic countries. He compiles it from older sources and his own questionnaire. In it he reports on a country west of Greenland called Vinland . It is the first written reference to America.
Entrance to the Arsenal in Venice
  • 1096-1099: First crusade : Pisa and Genoa support the crusaders in conquering the port cities in Syria , Lebanon and Palestine . They also deliver war material to one another and receive extraterritorial trading bases in the conquered ports . Venice, allied with Byzantium, signed a trade treaty with Gottfried von Bouillon in 1100 . With a naval victory at Jaffa in 1123 Venice secures the existence of the crusader states.
  • 1200: Shipbuilding : The first images of ships with stern rudders in the waters of Northern Europe come from this period .
  • Genoa : Got rich through maritime trade, and the first banks emerged from business, money exchange and money lending in the port city . In the loan agreements for the ship owners are risk clauses introduced, it is the earliest form of insurance .
  • from 1104 Venice : The construction of the arsenal was started under the Doge Ordelafo Falier . The property consisted of two marshy islands in the Castello district . This shipyard, which can be considered the largest manufacturing company in Europe before the age of industrialization, became the model for other arsenals in Europe. The area now covers 32 hectares, one tenth of the historic center of Venice.
  • 1120: Shipwreck : King Henry I returns to England with his court from Normandy in winter . The ship with the king's children falls on a cliff and sinks with man and mouse. King Heinrich I is said to never have laughed again. St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London , founded in memory, still exists today.
  • 1300: Law of the Sea : Venice : The Doge Ranieri Ziani has the law of the sea codified. It favors maritime trade and also gives ordinary sailors their rights and ensures the safety of ships; he introduces loading stamps against overloading.
  • 1244 Technology : To cope with the ever increasing loads , cranes with a lifting force of up to two tons are built on the quays . They have a pedal drive. The first traditional crane is installed in Utrecht .
  • 1283: Law of the Sea : In the Kingdom of Aragon a special court is established to regulate questions of seafaring ( Consolat de Mar ). The judges in this court are not lawyers but practitioners in the field of shipping and maritime trade.
  • 1299: Hamburg : Hamburg erects a tower on the island of Neuwerk to facilitate entry into the Elbe .
    Byzantine miniature painting, 13th century. Naumachia - the depiction of a combat swimmer, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale
  • Japan : The attempted invasions by the Mongols encourage the residents of Kyushu to build larger ships themselves. Since there is no sea power in East Asia, they quickly become pirates, the dreaded wokou off the coast of China.
  • 1400 first mention of combat swimmers in defense of the Byzantine Empire
  • Ship's crew : In Venice , a ship's clerk is required for every ocean-going ship. Since the merchants no longer accompany their goods themselves, they have to be reliably identified by the ship's clerks. This creates the consignment note ( bill of lading ).
  • 1311–1320: Cartography : Pietro Vesconte from Genoa is the leading draftsman of portulans for the Mediterranean. Seven cards from his workshop are still preserved from this period.
  • 1347–1350: Plague : The largest recorded plague epidemic plagues Europe. The plague is brought in by merchant ships from the Black Sea to Ragusa , Venice and Genoa and spreads from the port cities almost across the continent.
  • from 1390: The pirate federation of the Vitalienbrüder threatens the merchants of the Hanseatic League first on the Baltic Sea, from 1398 also on the North Sea.
Samurai board Mongolian ships. Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba , around 1293

15th and 16th centuries

Model of the Portuguese Nau Madre de Deus , in the Museu de Marinha , Lisbon.
Sailing manual Licht der Zeevaert , Willem Blaeu, 1608. Picture with the navigation instruments: compass, hourglass, sea astrolabe, earth and celestial globes, compasses, Jacob's staff and astrolabe .

In the early modern period the galleys became wider; they remained largely confined to the Mediterranean. In the Byzantine Empire , Greek fire was also used to arm the dromones , known as rowing ships. The last major sea battle with galleys was the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, in which Don Juan de Austria defeated the Turkish fleet under Sultan Selim II. In this naval battle, galeas already took part, which with a higher board, three sail masts and stronger firepower were superior to the galleys, which were only sparsely occupied with cannons.

A new development from the 15th century is the caravel . It arose from the requirements that the Portuguese and Spanish sailors faced under the conditions of the Atlantic . There, the caravel was the galleys by their ability higher the wind to sail, clearly superior.

Historical development of the sailing ship
  • In 1434 the Casa de Ceuta was founded in Lisbon . However, it was not very successful because after the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta in 1415, the trade routes and flows of goods connected with the city moved to other places. Around 1445, the Casa de Arguim and de Guiné were founded in Lagos on the Algarve , both of which, also known as Companhia de Lagos , served to develop Portuguese trade with West Africa . The first nautical observatory was built here on the initiative of Heinrich the Navigator . After his death in the sixties of the 15th century, both houses were relocated to Lisbon and later merged in the Casa da Guiné e da Mina , since the Portuguese had had a flourishing fortified military and trade base on the West African coast with Elmina since 1482.
  • In 1492 Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean islands
  • 1494 South America is in the Treaty of Tordesillas of Pope Alexander VI. split between Spain and Portugal . The eastern part, large parts of today's Brazil , was awarded to Portugal. Panama and the rest of the continent fell to Spain. The Spanish conquest came from Central America and the Caribbean in search of the legendary gold country El Dorado .
  • 1495: The first dry dock in Europe since ancient times was built in Portsmouth (England). However, it was several hundred years before the dry dock became generally accepted for shipbuilding in the 19th century.
  • 1497: Canal construction : Leonardo da Vinci perfects the construction of the chamber locks .
Model of a turtle ship
  • 1506: The Casa da Índia was both the central authority for the administration of all overseas territories of the Kingdom of Portugal and the central trading point and clearing house for all areas of overseas trade. As an economic institution, it functioned like a trading post or a trading establishment. The forerunners of the Casa da Índia emerged in the wake of the Portuguese voyages of discovery along the African coasts and the associated trading opportunities.
  • In 1512 the Portuguese navigator António de Abreu was the first European to discover the island of Timor in search of the Spice Islands .
  • The Gulf Stream is discovered in 1513 . In 1603 the ocean currents are described. The first maps of the ocean currents were drawn (1678) and (1786) with the aim of shortening the travel time between Europe and America for sailing ships .
  • In 1514 the Trinity House was founded by Henry VIII .
  • From 1570 one began to use the bars in a mobile manner; these were secured with a lock wood (movable ship component on the mast) so that the stanchions could be raised and lowered. This invention is attributed to the Dutch and was soon adopted by all seafaring nations.
  • 1576 Turtle Ship (Geobukseon) is the name of a type of warship that was developed in Korea . A turtle ship was shallow and had a wooden upper deck, which was provided with iron tips against enemy boarding attempts. On the other hand, there is no clear evidence for the opinion, which can sometimes be found, that the upper deck was provided with iron plates.
  • In 1588 Philip II had the Spanish Armada set out under the Duke of Medina Sidonia to overthrow Elizabeth I against England. Opposite her stood the English fleet under Charles Howard and the Vice-Admirals Drake , Hawkins and Frobisher , well-known privateer captains .
  • In 1592 the Spanish Habsburg King Philip II ruled on the Portuguese throne as Philip I of Portugal, this is the justification for England to disregard the Luso-British Alliance of 1373 and to capture the Portuguese Nau Madre de Deus in front of the Azores . On September 7, the ship docked in Dartmouth . Nothing like it had ever been seen in England: the huge ship and the splendid cargo, worth almost 50 percent of the amount of gold in Queen Elizabeth's state treasure , aroused the imagination of London merchants. They began to imagine what goods they would be able to obtain regularly if they succeeded in breaking the Portuguese monopoly in oriental trade.
  • 1600: America : The first slave ships for the transatlantic slave trade are used.

17th and 18th centuries

A Japanese red seal ship with square and Latin sails, rudder and stern design in western style. The ships were mostly armed with 6-8 cannons. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.
  • The national coastline is limited to three nautical miles (approximately 6 km). The areas outside this range are referred to as international waters.
  • Red Seal Shuinsen ( Japanese朱 印 船Shuinsen ) were armed Japanese merchant ships with destinations in Southeast Asian ports that held a red seal patent from the early Tokugawa Shogunate . Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships traveled overseas under this system.
  • The red seal ships were usually 500 to 750 tons in size, which was as much or more than the European galleons but less than the large Portuguese carracks , often over 1000 tons. The crew was about 200 people per ship (the average of the 15 ships for which this number is known is 236). The ships were built in different places. Some of them built in Nagasaki combined Western, Japanese, and Chinese ship designs. Others were Chinese junks . After the trade with Southeast Asia was firmly established, numerous ships were ordered and built in Ayutthaya in Siam , as the construction of Thai ships and the quality of the Thai wood were considered to be excellent.
Surface ocean currents 2004
  • In 1623 Hamburg merchants founded the Hamburg Admiralty with the aim of protecting Hamburg merchant ships from pirate attacks , especially in the Atlantic, with their own armed ships . It existed until 1811.
  • In the middle of the 17th century, more Dutch ships were sailing the seas than the rest of Europe put together. The Dutch were considered the wagoners of Europe and the world's best shipbuilders. The Dutch had learned that smaller ships were more economical than large cargo sailors. They were cheaper to build, required smaller sails and simpler rigging . Their shallow draft made it possible for these ships to enter unknown shores, lagoons and estuaries. Due to an unusually slim design (length to width ratio of 4: 1), they were relatively fast. These types of ships ( Fleuten , Vlieboot, Wassergeuse, Bojer ) were called the Flying Dutchman .
Portrait and title page of his work Diarium or Diary of a Nine Years' Journey , edition from 1668, printed in Jena
  • More specialized ships were used from the 17th century, for example ships of the line (as warships with several cannon decks) and frigates (lightly armored, relatively fast ships)
  • Johann von der Behr († around 1692) was a German world traveler; he is considered an important contemporary witness for the history of German seafaring.
  • In 1698 Edmond Halley made a trip to investigate the change in the de-location . It is considered the first marine exploration expedition. The development of navigation was a prerequisite for other research (for example, the study of ocean currents) and for the creation of more precise nautical charts .
  • In 1720 the world's first yacht club was founded ( Cork Water Club in Ireland ).
  • 1728: Madagascar : Libertalia the pirates' idea of a utopian republic is written down.
Josef Ressel
  • In 1760 the British company "Lloyds Register of Shipping" was founded - the first classification society . At that time there was a "Coffee House" owned by Edward Lloyd in the City of London . This “coffee house” was a meeting place for ship owners, brokers and business people to find out about trade, shipping and their operators. It became the nucleus of today's oldest classification society. Little by little, some shipowners and shipyard owners joined together in a company with the aim of improving communication between the two parties “manufacturer” and “buyer”. In addition, it was very important to the shipowners to create an institution that is professionally capable of evaluating ships, on the basis of which policies can then be drawn up for the ships by the insurance companies.
  • The Frenchman Claude de Jouffroy d'Abbans built the first functional steamship in 1783. On February 1, 1788, Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patented the first steamship. The American Robert Fulton patented a modified design on February 11, 1809 and this was also economically successful. His paddle steamer North River Steam Boat , later commonly called Clermont , was built in 1807 and still had sails. It reaches a speed of 4.5 knots (8.3 km / h) and was used in liner shipping between New York and Albany .
  • Josef Ludwig Franz Ressel (born June 29, 1793 in Chrudim ( Bohemia ), † October 9, 1857 in Laibach ) was an Austrian / Czech / Slovenian forest clerk and inventor . Ressel was not the inventor of the ship's propeller , but the one who brought it to technical maturity. At that time the propeller was still called a screw because it was very similar to the Archimedean screw . When the first steamships were built in 1783 and 1788, no one believed in the future of this type of ship. It was not until 1809 that the first economically successful steamship was put into service.

19th century

  • 1813: The anchor mine is the oldest type of mine used in large numbers. The first were deployed in front of the Hudson and Richmond forts . The mine barriers of the First World War consisted exclusively of anchor mines , those of the Second World War predominantly, and anchor mines were also planned or used in the Cold War and in regional conflicts after 1945.
  • 1816: The first steamship built in Germany, the Princess Charlotte of Prussia, is launched at the John Barnett Humphreys shipyard in Pichelsdorf near Spandau .
  • 1816: The first steamship built by a German shipbuilding engineer, Die Weser , is launched in Bremen-Vegesack .
  • 1832: Grand Duke Paul-Friedrich-August von Oldenburg founds a navigation school in Elsfleth near Bremen at the instigation of Elsfleth shipping companies
  • 1839: The clipper was developed in the United States and had its forerunners in the so-called Baltimore clippers . These were small mail carriers that, because of their high speed, served as blockade breakers in the War of Independence . They were two-masted topsail schooners with a square top on both masts. The Scottish Maid from Aberdeen , Scotland , looked very similar to these Baltimore clippers, but had a convex (sickle-shaped) bow, was significantly smaller and drove as a fast cargo ship . It was Britain's first clipper and is also considered a direct precursor to the clipper.
  • Sea mine : The German engineer Ernst Werner von Siemens, brother of the well-known inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens , constructed sea ​​mines for the defense of the port of Kiel in 1848 during the Schleswig-Holstein War , which could be ignited electrically from land.
  • December 1854 Etmal : The fastest ships of the 19th century were the clippers . The Champion of the Seas drove a distance of 465 nautical miles .
  • April 16, 1856: Declaration on the law of the sea is agreed that capturing is illegal and that neutral ships may not be seized by warring nations and that their cargo may not be confiscated.
  • May 29, 1865: The German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People is founded in Kiel with the aim of rescuing people from distress at sea .
  • November 16, 1869: The Suez Canal is opened. This shortens the journey time of the ships - depending on the destination - between 24 and 31 days.
  • 1867 Founding of the North German Seewarte in Hamburg by Wilhelm von Freeden , Rector of the Navigation School in Elsfleth
  • 1870: The gross register ton is introduced according to Builder's Measurement . The determination of ship sizes became necessary when one began to burden ships with taxes in order to cover costs for ports , beacons or the dredging of fairways . The term barrel came about at a time when ships were measured by the number of tons , the barrels they could carry. Different port cities used different dimensions so that it was necessary to specify the reference dimension, for example the Lübschen bin defined by Lübeck . In parallel, load capacity values were loads used.
  • 1872: The beginning of modern oceanography when the HMS Challenger embarked on a multi-year marine voyage around the world. The aim of this and subsequent expeditions in different countries was the first inventory of the topographical, physical, chemical and biological conditions in the oceans, about the deeper layers of which almost nothing was known at that time.
  • 1875: Founding of the Deutsche Seewarte near Hamburg, which is also a scientific marine observatory
  • 1876: Georg Balthasar von Neumayer (born June 21, 1826 in Kirchheimbolanden ; † May 24, 1909 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ), was a German geophysicist and polar explorer. He headed the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg from 1876 to 1903 and devoted himself in particular to south polar research and was chairman of the International Polar Commission from 1879.
Rendsburg high bridge

Carl Chun (born October 1, 1852 in Höchst am Main , † April 11, 1914 in Leipzig ) was a German zoologist and deep-sea researcher . His life's work is the organization and implementation of the first German deep-sea expedition with the steamer Valdivia in the years 1898/1899. Chun himself was a specialist in rib jellyfish and squid .

Plimsoll loading brand

Samuel Plimsoll (1824–98), who went to the field against a shipping company that deliberately let unseaworthy ships go out in order to receive the sum insured in the event of shipwreck. He mobilized public opinion against the resistance of Benjamin Disraeli and the shipowners for a bill against unseaworthy ships (Unseaworthy Ships Bill). In 1890 it led to the identification of all merchant ships in the kingdom, which was later adopted by almost all maritime nations.

The age of tall ships and steamers began. The often relatively clumsy and slow sailing ships of the Middle Ages had had their day. In 1889, the 20 knot White Star Liner Teutonic, designed by Alexander Carlisle (who later became the chief designer of the Olympic class ), was the first steamer to be put into service without any sail.

However, the technical transition from sailing ships to steamer took several decades. A "new" generation of mainsail ships was not only considerably faster, but also had a far greater carrying capacity. Even after the steamships were decommissioned and replaced by modern motor ships , some of the last tall ships were still sailing the oceans . These included the two former Flying-P-Liners (legendary, fast tall ships from the F. Laeisz shipping company ) Pamir , which sank in a hurricane in 1957, and the Passat , which was decommissioned a few weeks later and is now anchored in Lübeck-Travemünde as a museum ship lies. The last windjammer to sail freight was the Drumcliff (ship) , which sank off Peru on June 26, 1958 .

Most of the tall ships still in service today serve as sailing training ships and some sail for the national navy , for example the Gorch Fock (II) from Germany. Other windjammers are used by civil authorities, especially for the merchant navy, as sailing training ships (e.g. the Khersones from Ukraine or the Kruzenshtern and the Sedov from Russia ) and / or are made available for paying guests (e.g. the Alexander von Humboldt ). Other sailors are now in use as, in some cases, luxurious holiday ships.

20th century

HMS Dreadnought , 1906

In 1906 the battleship HMS Dreadnought commissioned by the Royal Navy was completed. " Dreadnought " became the generic term for a new type of warship that trumped the ships of the line built up to that point in many ways. After the First World War , the term was gradually replaced by " capital ship " or " battleship ".

  • January 1, 1907 The Seekasse was founded.
  • April 14, 1912 The RMS Titanic , the largest ship ever built, collides with an iceberg at night and sinks 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. The Titanic was the last ship to be designated as "unsinkable". More than 1500 people died in the accident; there are not enough lifeboats on board.
  • August 14, 1914 first ship passage through the Panama Canal . This shortens the sea route from the east coast to the west coast of America by around 16,000 km; there is no dangerous bypassing the southern tip of South America .
  • 1915 the world's first aircraft carrier , the British HMS Ark Royal , enters service.
  • May 31, 1916 to June 1, 1916 Naval battle on Skagerrak (off Jutland ) - the largest naval battle of the First World War : German Imperial Navy against the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy . Judging by the number of ships involved , it was probably the greatest naval battle in world history. The Royal Fleet lost 14 ships; nevertheless, she was able to maintain the sea ​​blockade until the end of the war.
  • 1916/1918 due to a lack of steel, the first ships made of waterproof concrete ( concrete ships ) are built. One of the last surviving examples, the coaster “Treue”, is located in Bremen on the Weser promenade and is now home to a discotheque.
  • June 21, 1919 Scapa Flow : After the armistice , 74 ships of the German deep-sea fleet were interned in Scapa Flow. There Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter gave the order to scuttling the fleet .
  • April 9, 1940: Operation Weser Exercise , the first triphibian operation in war history.
  • September 27, 1941 the Patrick Henry is the first Liberty Ship launched in the USA. More than 2,700 units of this type of ship will be built by the end of the war. The simple construction allowed construction times of around 30 days. This type of ship also holds the unbroken world record for the construction of a cargo ship with the Robert E Peary (4 days and 15 hours of construction time). 135 units were completed in a single month (December 1943); that was the culmination of this shipbuilding program.
  • June 6, 1944: Operation Neptune uses the strongest landing forces in war history. These were supported and carried by the most powerful collection of ships of all time. a. included: 5 battleships , 23 cruisers , 69 destroyers , 56 frigates and corvettes , 247 mine sweepers , 5 monitors and gunboats, 256 smaller ships and 4126 landing craft - a total of over 6000 ships.
  • 1956 The first container ship built in the United States with the converted tanker Ideal X , than the forwarding order began McLean Trucking Co., the trailers housing of articulated lorries without chassis to transport over long sea routes with the ship. In 1960 McLean founded the Sea Land Corporation . In 1966, the container ship Fairland of the Sea-Land shipping company in Bremen entered Germany for the first time . From 1968 the conversion of the most important liner services to container traffic began, initially in the North Atlantic traffic from the USA / east coast to Western Europe, from October 1968 the transpacific service between Japan – USA / west coast. The world's first built container ship, the Hakone Maru, was used here by NYK Line . At the end of 1968, Bremer Vulkan built the first container ships (750 TEU each) in Germany with the Weser Express for Norddeutscher Lloyd and Blohm & Voss, Hamburg with the Elbe Express for Hapag . They sailed with four other sister ships on the North Atlantic route. In 1969 the liner service Europe – Australia / New Zealand was switched to container traffic, at the end of 1971 Europe – Far East, in May 1977 Europe – South Africa and Europe – Caribbean / Gulf of Mexico . In 1981 the route South Africa – Far East followed (safari service). The most important line connections were thus converted to container traffic.
  • January 13, 1959 The International Maritime Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations . Until May 21, 1982 it was called IMCO - Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization . Its founding was decided in 1948, but the statutes, which were amended several times, did not come into force until 1958. On January 13, 1959, it began its work with headquarters in London . The IMO has 172 states as full members and Hong Kong , Macau and the Faroe Islands as associate members.
  • 1959 The era of the supertanker begins. Tankers with more than 100,000 dwt are built. With the construction of the 555,000 dwt Pierre Guillaumat and the 564,736 dwt large Viking years (after renovation in 1980) the frenzy of size comes to an end for the time being.
  • November 25, 1961 the first nuclear- powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise , enters service.
  • 1969 the Otto Hahn , the first (and last) ore freighter with nuclear drive is put into operation. The Otto Hahn is also a research ship .
  • On the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of the naval battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, a Spanish galley of that time was reconstructed and exhibited in the Museu Marítim in Barcelona . It is the flagship Don Juan de Austrias, the Real , with which he led the fleet of the Holy League as commander-in-chief . The Real was 60 m long, 6.2 m wide and was moved by 236 rowers. In keeping with their importance, their superstructures were splendidly decorated and the entire ship was kept in red and gold. With her, Don Juan made a decisive contribution to the victory of the league by attacking the Ottoman flagship Sultana and defeating it after a tough boarding battle.
  • October 18, 1996 The UN establishes the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which has since been based in Hamburg .

21st century

Post-Panamax container ship P&O Nedlloyd Barentsz (5468 TEU) built in 2000 from the Kvaerner Warnowwerft
  • 2000: The first container ships with a carrying capacity of 7,000 TEU are put into service. They are powered by the largest diesel engine in the world to date . A 2-stroke engine built by MAN AG with approx. 90,200 hp.
  • From September 2006: The largest container ships of the Emma Mærsk class to date (2013) with a deadweight of 14,770 TEU are put into service.

Roman Empire

Roman warship
  • 500 BC BC: According to the historian Polybius , the city signs its first treaty with Carthage . Rome is allowed to trade with Sicily and Sardinia , but its ships are not allowed to go further west. A short time before, Rome had extended its territory to the mouth of the Tiber in order to gain possession of the salt pans there.
  • 300 BC BC: The city signs its second treaty with Carthage. Roman ships are now allowed to approach the coast of the Iberian Peninsula, but no further than Cabo de Palos near Carthago Nova ( Cartagena ).
  • In the First Punic War , Carthaginian warships were stranded on the coast of Italy. This was the starting signal for Roman shipbuilding. The Carthaginian ships were used as patterns for Roman ships. The Carthaginian shipbuilding technology was copied and supplemented by the Corvus as a Roman invention. Within a short time, the Romans built up an efficient shipbuilding industry and built a fleet that could compete with the Carthaginians. After the conquest of Carthage, Roman shipbuilding was technologically leading, but the Greeks built even larger ships in Egypt. A particularly important shipyard location of the Roman Empire was Misenum on the Gulf of Naples , which was also a naval base, port, naval school ( armaturarum schola ) and the location of the prima adjutrix , a legion of marines .
  • 338 BC BC: During the Latin War , some Latin ships are captured from Rome. Their ship's bow ( rostra ) is placed on the speaker's platform at the Roman Forum for decoration . Rostra will later become the name of the public speaker's platform.
  • around 275 BC Chr .: After defeating Pyrrhus of Epirus begins the city coins to coin facilitating trade. This is the denarius of four sesterces of 2.5 aces each. Before that, Rome had no need for coins due to the lack of maritime trade.
  • around 230 BC Chr .: After a popular resolution, the Lex Claudia is issued, according to which senators and their sons are not allowed to own merchant ships that can load more than 300 amphorae . The responsible politicians are to be kept away from trading.
  • 102 BC BC: Rome decides to take countermeasures against the Cilician piracy. The reasons for this are controversial due to the poor sources: an increasing loss of prestige and economic interests are likely to have been decisive. The speaker Marcus Antonius embarks on a campaign with only moderate success.
  • 74 BC Chr .: In the three wars of Rome against Mithridates VI. from Pontos , piracy in the Aegean is becoming unbearable. Often Rome is cut off from the vital grain supplies from the provinces. This year Rome sets up its own squadron under Mark Antony the Elder with bases in Epidaurus and Gythin to combat them . Antonius remains completely unsuccessful.
  • 67 BC Chr .: After Delos was sacked by pirates in 69 BC. And the attack on the port of Ostia in 67 BC. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus is entrusted by Rome with special powers to combat them. In order to master the pirate plague, he divided the Mediterranean and the Black Sea into 13 sectors. Each sector was provided with an independent commander. The Roman Senate made 270 ships with 120,000 soldiers available to him to carry out this operation. At the beginning of spring, all commanders struck at the same time. The pirates were attacked either on their bases or at sea. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus himself led an association of 60 ships. He clears the pirates of the Mediterranean in a few months and is then given command of the war against Mithridates .
  • around 50 BC Chr .: More and more Romans come to Egypt as tourists . From Alexandria , passenger shipping develops up the Nile to the sights of the country.
  • 56 BC Chr .: Julius Caesar's galley fleet wins over the Venetian sailing ship fleet . With the prevailing calm, the Roman galleys were superior to the sailing ships in terms of maneuverability .
  • 30 BC Chr .: One of the richest freight shipments by sea was probably Cleopatra's royal treasure . Octavian captures him while taking Alexandria and sends him to Rome. When the treasure arrives there, the interest rate drops immediately from twelve to four percent.
  • 22 BC Chr. Augustus : The fleet stationed in Misenum near Naples intervenes several times in domestic politics , although it does not acquire the importance of the Praetorian Guard .
  • 12-9 BC Chr .: Germania : Drusus the Elder (38 BC to 9 AD) had the Classis Germanica built on the Rhine , one of the largest naval units of the Roman Empire, with which he attacked the Frisians and Chauken in the North Sea region . To do this, he has a canal ( Fossa Drusiana ) dig. The Teutons only have small vehicles like the Hjortspringboot , which was excavated in Northern Schleswig . Until about the 4th century the Roman Rhine fleet controlled the river.
  • 40 AD: Heavy transport : Under Emperor Caligula , the large obelisk that stands in front of the Vatican today is brought from Egypt to Rome. Together with its base, it weighs almost 500 tons. A special transporter is being built for the transport . The ship carries 800 tons of lenses as ballast . After the transport, the ship is sunk as a breakwater for the construction of the port of Ostia . During the construction of the Rome airport , the remains of the ship are found, which show that it was 95 m long and 21 m wide.
  • August 24, 79 : Pompeii is destroyed by Vesuvius . One of the victims was the famous Roman writer Pliny the Elder , who, driven by a scientific interest and a desire to help, drove with his fleet (he was the prefect of the Roman fleet in Misenum ) to the site of the disaster. Before Stabiae he perished in the sulfur fumes. His nephew Pliny the Younger was a contemporary witness of the catastrophe, and he described the process in detail in letters he received.
  • 286–296 AD: England : Carausius the commander of the British fleet ( Classis Britannica ) renounces Rome and lets himself be proclaimed ruler of Britain. The fleet that Rome set up against Carausius is lost in the English Channel in a storm.
  • 300 AD: The Sassanid Empire blocks the Persian Gulf , the Ethiopian Empire the Red Sea for Roman merchant shipping to India.
  • 400 AD: Passenger traffic : After Christianity was elevated to the status of the state religion , pilgrimages to Jerusalem begin .
Commons : Ancient Rome  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Vikings

Replica of a longship
Viking ship in the museum in Roskilde , Denmark
  • around 400 AD: Northern Europe : The first longships of the Vikings are occupied for this period. For the time being they were unsailed, only partially seaworthy and initially served coastal shipping.
  • 793 AD: Vikings : This year and the raid on Lindisfarne Monastery in Northumberland marks the beginning of the Viking raids on the coast of Europe.
  • On August 20, 844, the Vikings appeared at the mouth of the Tagus , a few weeks later they reached Cadiz in the southwest of the peninsula. From there they drove upstream on the Guadalquivir to Seville and sacked the city for about a week until they were defeated on November 11 of the same year by the troops of Abd ar-Rahman II.
  • 845 AD: Germany , Hamburg : Danish Vikings destroy Hammaburg , Bishop Ansgar flees to Bremen . The Danish Vikings advance further up the Elbe , but are driven out by the Saxons and have to surrender their booty.
  • 885–889 AD France : Danish Vikings, with 40,000 men and 700 ships, make a train up the Seine . Rouen is sacked, Paris besieged and the country as far as Lyon sacked.
  • In 1000 or 1001 AD the Viking Leifur Eiríksson traveled from Greenland to America.

It probably ended up in Newfoundland . According to the saga, an acquaintance of Eiríksson named Bjarni Herjúlfsson discovered America 15 years earlier when he got lost on the open sea. However, Herjúlfsson had not landed in America, but drove on to Greenland without stopping. Leifur Eiríksson had consulted Herjúlfsson for his trip to America. Eiríksson and his men built houses on the coast and spent the winter on a stretch of coast they called Vinland . The next spring they sailed back to Greenland. While Eiríksson succeeded his father Erik the Red as leader of Brattahlíð , his brother Thorvald went to America, found the houses of Leifur Eiríksson, but was killed in a dispute with the indigenous people . His helmsman brought news of his death to Greenland two years later. Thorstein , another brother of Leifur, followed the route of the two, but failed to find America and returned unsuccessfully.

In 1006 the Icelander Thorfinn Karlsefni , who had meanwhile married Thorstein's widow, made the first real attempt to colonize America. With three ships and 250 people he sailed to Vinland, where he found the abandoned huts of Leifur Eiríksson. After initially friendly contact with the local population, tension developed and soon mutual attacks, in which most of the Vikings died. The survivors held out in Vinland for two more years before returning to Greenland.

A last attempt by Leifur's half-sister Freydis Eriksdóttir followed . As soon as they arrived in Vinland, however, the Vikings fell out among themselves.

Reconstruction of a Viking settlement in Vinland in L'Anse aux Meadows (Newfoundland)

Parts of this saga have been scientifically proven. Leifur Eiríksson's description of America was exactly the same as it was. In 1961 a Viking settlement was excavated in L'Anse aux Meadows (Newfoundland). The researchers assume that these were the houses built by Leifur Eiríksson.

The Icelandic annals, Grænlendingar , report on further trips to America, including by a bishop named Eirikur Gnúpsson in 1121 and by priests in the 13th century. The last description refers to a crossing in 1347. It is unclear whether these Vikings stayed in America or returned to Europe.

There may be indications of Viking voyages further south along the North American Atlantic coast. The Maine State Museum in Augusta exhibits a 1065-1080 Viking coin that was unearthed in Maine. In the Greenlandic Viking settlement of Ameralikfjord, anthracite coal was found that cannot come from Greenland, Iceland or Norway, but is identical to that from Rhode Island ( lit .: Zillmer).

The construction of the Viking ship took place without plans, only from the orally transmitted memory of the fathers. There are two types of ships

  • Longships , also known as warships or combat ships and often called "dragons" because of their stern jewelry , and merchant ships, so-called Knorren .

Longships were the warships or combat ships of the Vikings. They could attack with them quickly and unexpectedly - but withdraw again before a retaliatory strike could be organized. This type of ship was a displacer about 20 m long , the wooden planks of which were built in clinker construction . The planks were held together with metal rivets at the overlaps. All wooden ship parts of all types of ships were chopped with different axes from tree trunks according to the respective grain. All in all, this resulted in enormous strength and resilience. The planks were not sawn either. The longships were rowed and sailed; they had a folding sail mast that could be erected and dismantled in a very short time (about 1.5 minutes). The draft of all ships was no more than 1.5 m and they reached a maximum speed of about 20 knots (37 km / h). In addition to the possibility of long-distance voyages, the Vikings could not only sail with their ships in shallow waters, but also penetrate deep into the interior of the country along the rivers, even under bridges.

With the merchant ships , which were wider and more high-sided than the longships, the Vikings set out, for example, on their voyages of discovery to Greenland and to trade in what is now Russia.

The rudder of all ship types was on the right-hand side, from which the starboard directional information is derived in general shipping. How the Vikings managed to navigate the open sea is not yet fully understood. The Riem saga shows that the Vikings knew even then that the earth was a sphere. An archaeological find suggests the use of a compass-like navigation aid. A wooden disc half appeared in Greenland in 1948, with 17 markings and a hole in the center. In 2004 archaeologists discovered a similar piece on the island of Wollin. A compass, a sundial, or both? No one knows exactly yet. But the Northmen were also familiar with the tides . The Norse saga of Olaf the Holy tells of a shining stone that shone in the light even in poor visibility, overcast skies and fog. There really is such a mineral, it is called cordierite . Depending on the direction of the light, the stone turns yellow or blue. The position of the sun is indicated by different polarization levels . Landmarks, fish and bird migrations told the Kendtmann (Kundiger) where to go, even when the stars weren't to be seen, as in the bright nights. The color of the water also revealed the current and one sniffed with a keen nose when land was nearby. Overall, the Vikings were not only trend-setting in navigation and shipbuilding for their time, but many of the terms from this area that are still used today ultimately come from them.

From a cultural point of view, the ship was of enormous importance to the Vikings, as testified by ship stone setting and tombs in ship shape, as well as burials in whole ships and the depictions of ships on rune stones .

Hanse

Kraweel Lisa from Lübeck

The combination of land and sea transport in one organization was the decisive step into the future, which should ultimately bring the Hanseatic League the monopoly-like dominance in trade and transport on the North and Baltic Seas. However, the Hanseatic League did not develop new traffic routes on the water until well into the 14th century; rather, the traffic routes developed by the Frisians, Saxons, English and Scandinavians were taken over. The trading partners and boatmen were ousted, often under the appearance of fair contracts between equal partners. An example of this is the privilege of Henry the Lion to the Gotlanders in 1161. When they refused to accept the merchants from the newly re-established Lübeck (1159) as a trading partner, Heinrich brokered and granted the Gotlanders the same rights in his area, how they should give the Gotlanders to the Germans on their island. Now the merchants from Visby , who until then had dominated the intermediate trade on the Baltic Sea, could at most bring their goods to Lübeck, the direct route further into the interior remained blocked to them. Another advantage of Hanseatic shipping was a certain legal security compared to competitors, a developed maritime law, which regulated questions of affreightment, manning, conditions on board, behavior in case of distress at sea, etc. Legal security for Hanseatic ships, especially abroad, was fundamental for the smooth functioning of the transport organization. Issues of technical ship safety and the seaworthiness of ships were also taken very seriously, as was the protection of merchant ships from piracy . The skippers therefore mostly sailed in association in groups of two and three ships, and from 1477 larger Hanseatic ships each had to have 20 armed men on board. However, these measures did not always protect against piracy.

With the single-masted cog , a type of ship has emerged since the 12th century at the latest, which marks the transition from the coastal ship suitable for the wadden sea to the ocean-going merchant ship.

Pirates

The staled skull of someone executed in Hamburg around 1400, discovered in 1878 during the construction of the Speicherstadt on Grasbrook, served as the basis for the reconstruction of facial features, probably a pirate, probably Klaus Störtebeker

Homer already reported about pirates there in the 8th century BC. Chr. In his epics pirate trips for the main occupation. In particular, the coasts of the Aegean were inviting as hiding places and hiding places. Correspondence of the ruler of Cyprus from the 14th century BC. Are occupied by pirates on the south coast of Asia Minor . The main starting point is said to have been Lycia in today's south-west Turkey. In many later ancient sources, this region was also considered the home of pirates who made the waters of large parts of the eastern Mediterranean unsafe. The prevalent piracy in the Aegean was - according to Herodotus and Thucydides - first fought by the Cretan Navy. A true pirate plague z. During the period of the Roman Empire, the Senate gave Pompey ( 67 BC ) special powers. His regular sea war against the pirates led to the temporary end of piracy; Byzantium , at the end of its power, was in turn affected by Arab pirates.

There was a certain form of democracy on the ships. Important decisions were often made by voting on the crew. One reason for the initial influx of piracy was the merciless repression on the official merchant and war fleets of the individual countries. The period between 1650 and 1730, when pirates of European origin based on corrupt governors and government officials made the Caribbean unsafe in particular, can be described as the time of “classic piracy”. After eliminating their bases in the Caribbean Sea, some pirate leaders moved their place of activity to the Indian Ocean, where a kind of pirate republic ( Libertalia ) had emerged in part of the island of Madagascar , which existed until around 1730.

A special form of piracy existed in the Mediterranean. This originated mainly from the so-called barbarian states , i.e. the North African territories of the Maghreb between the Atlantic Ocean and Egypt . In these countries piracy was carried out by the state and was the main source of income for the state. This mischief went so far at the end of the 18th century that some European countries (such as the then independent Hanseatic City of Hamburg) but also the still young USA preferred to make regular payments to the governments of the “barbarian states” so that their merchant ships would not be bothered . It was not until 1830 that France put an end to this bustle with the conquest of Algeria.

Captured pirates were mostly executed. As a deterrent to other pirates, the corpses were displayed in an exposed area facing the lake.

See also:

Commons : Piracy  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Explorer

Henry the Navigator ( Portuguese : Infante Dom Henrique o Navegador ; born March 4, 1394 in Porto , † November 13, 1460 in Sagres ) was an infant (prince) of Portugal from the house of Avis . The voyages of discovery he initiated along the West African coast established the Portuguese maritime and colonial power and marked the beginning of European expansion .

As governor of the Algarve , Heinrich initiated an ambitious program to open up a sea route to India from 1418 . However, the “seafaring school” at his residence in Sagres is an invention of later centuries, as the Portuguese mathematician and historian Duarte Leite has demonstrated. Only the collaboration of the Jewish cartographer Jehuda Cresques , called Master Jaime of Mallorca , is mentioned in the sources , who - according to the "Asia" of Joao de Barros from the 16th century - taught Portuguese seafarers in his science. The prince initiated numerous voyages of discovery along the African coast with a specially developed sailing ship , the caravel . The knowledge gained in navigation , cartography and shipbuilding was fundamental for all subsequent Portuguese voyages of discovery.

The Portuguese kings attached great importance to a thorough theoretical and practical training of their pilots . They became the real protagonists of the voyages of discovery in search of the sea ​​route to India around the Cape of Good Hope. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Portuguese pilots in particular formed a small but very popular seafaring elite based on their knowledge. From the beginning, the Portuguese captains and pilots were obliged to record in secret logbooks, the rediros , all the experiences and knowledge they had gathered on their voyages and which were important for navigation . More than 2,000 nautical miles of African coastal waters had been traveled by the time the Infante died . The captains were obliged to carry a padrão (Portuguese colonial column). The captains had their names and dates carved into the stone under the Christian cross and the coat of arms of Portugal at striking, newly discovered points such as capes or estuaries .

In the summer of 1487 Bartolomeu Diaz set out to explore the sea route around Africa. In December 1487 a violent storm forced him to steer south towards the open sea. When he went east again after 13 days, he had passed the Cape without having seen it and entered the Fischbai country on February 3, 1488. The way to India had now been found, but the crew refused to sail on. The cape was named Diaz Cabo tormentoso (Cape of Storms). King Juan II renamed it and called it Cabo de boa esperanca ( Cape of Good Hope ). In 1497 Vasco da Gama managed to circumnavigate the Cape and reach India.

Christopher Columbus ( ital. Cristoforo Colombo , span. Cristóbal Colón , port. Cristovão Colombo , Germanized (or Latinized) Columbus or Columbus ; * probably between 25 August and 31 October 1451 ; †  20th May 1506 in Valladolid ) was an Italian navigator in Spanish service. He is not the discoverer of America, as is often claimed, since the Vikings were there before him. In addition, the Indians are also immigrants from America, which is often ignored. He himself believed until the end of his life that he had discovered a route by sea to " back India ".

Zhèng Hé鄭 和 (in another transliteration : Cheng Ho , also called 三寶Sān Bǎo , maiden name Ma Ho ; * 1371 Kunming in the province of Yunnan ; † 1433 or 1435 ) is considered the most famous Chinese admiral and one of the most important seafarers of the 2nd millennium after Christ. Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He undertook seven large expeditions to the Pacific and Indian Oceans with huge fleets . He not only successfully fought the pirate nuisance , but also explored the seas as far as Arabia and East Africa . His treasure ships , which with a length of about 70 meters and 9 masts were among the largest wooden ships of all time, covered more than 50,000 km. His nickname San Bao has sparked speculation that the Muslim Zheng He could have been the historical model for the Arab legendary figure Sinbad the seafarer .

Ferdinand Magellan , Portuguese Fernão de Magalhães , (* 1480 in Sabrona , Trás-os-Montes Province , Portugal ; † April 27, 1521 in Mactan , Philippines ) was a Portuguese navigator who sailed for the Spanish crown. Magellan made the first circumnavigation of the world. The story of his journey is best known through the notes of one participant, Antonio Pigafetta .

Sir Francis Drake (Spanish: el Draque); (* around 1540 ; † January 28, 1596 ) was a British privateer , explorer and admiral and the first British circumnavigator (see circumnavigation of Francis Drake ). As a navigator and seaman, he is still considered to be one of the outstanding personalities of English seafaring .

James Cook (born October 27, 1728 in Marton near Middlesbrough , † February 14, 1779 in Hawaii ) was a British navigator and explorer . He became famous for three trips to the Pacific Ocean , on which he discovered numerous islands and measured and mapped other islands.

Gallery of famous explorers (selection)

fishing

  • about 70,000-10,000 BC Chr .: Upper Palaeolithic : The first references to seafaring tribes in Europe such as bone harpoons and fishhooks (around 20,000 BC) date from the younger Paleolithic
  • around 30,000 BC Chr .: Oceania : In the Pacific , in addition to Australia, human remains are found on the Bismarck Archipelago and on Buka in the northern Solomon Islands . These are mainly remains of fire and mussel shells. These people, too, must have covered short stretches of the sea by boat.
  • about 20,000-10,000 BC Chr .: India : The cultural layers of the Upper Palaeolithic are mainly found on the edges of the great rivers. This shows that by this time at the latest, people began to move their settlement areas from the steppes and mountain slopes to the inland waters.
  • about 15,000-10,000 BC Chr .: China: Towards the end of the last ice age, an early hunting and fishing culture existed in the north of the country and in what is now Mongolia in the then still numerous inland waters. Harpoons and remains of mussels have been found from this time.
  • around 12,000 BC Chr .: Upper Egypt : On the Nile near Abd el-Quadir and Jebel Sahaba, early settlements of hunting and fishing cultures are found. The importance of fishing is particularly evident in the finds in the Catfish Cave (catfish, catfish cave).
  • around 10,000 BC Chr .: Siberia : The oldest harpoons and fishing nets of this area are found near Lake Baikal . They show that at that time people in southern Siberia largely made a living from fishing.
  • from about 10,000 BC Chr .: Northern Europe : After the last ice age subsided, people followed the big game migrating north. On the northern European coast, cultures of hunters, fishermen and shell collectors develop. These people gradually colonize the coastal areas of Scandinavia , which will become ice-free from the 8th millennium. They build the first boats in Northern Europe with skins over a frame made of wood or pieces of antler .
  • about 9500 BC Chr .: Northern Europe : The remains of fishing nets and sled runners in southern Finnish peat bogs can be dated from this period.
  • around 4800 BC Chr .: Korea : The inhabitants of what is now Busan lived from hunting, fishing and collecting shellfish in the coastal zone. The presence of Japanese pot shards indicates an early trading relationship.
  • around 3700 BC Chr .: Korea : The inhabitants in the south already practice deep sea fishing, especially for deep water molluscs such as sea ​​lions and whales .
  • around 1000-300 BC Chr .: South America : The people of the Chorrera culture on the coast of today's Ecuador begin to use rush rafts for fishing.
  • 1500 AD: For unknown reasons, the herring schools sometimes fail to appear in the Skagerrak and Kattegat and move to the southern North Sea . The Danish Skåne is losing its importance as the center of the fish trade. Fishing on the Dogger Bank is now the main source of income for the Dutch.

whaling

As rock carvings and bone finds in the south of the Korean peninsula Bangu-Dae (near Ulsan ) show, whales were hunted there 7,000 years ago . Cave paintings in Scandinavia prove a millennia-old practice of whaling in Europe. The Eskimos of North America also traditionally hunt whales, for example with spears thrown from kayaks .

Whaling in the 18th century; Illustration for a travelogue about James Cook's journeys
Whaling harpoon

When in 1583 William Poole and in 1596 Willem Barents found a rich occurrence of bowhead whales in search of the northeast passage north of Siberia near Spitsbergen , the English in 1611 and the Dutch in 1612 began an extensive whale hunt, which in 1644 German ships from Hamburg and Altona and in 1650 the English colonists in North America joined them.

The Tran of the whale was an important raw material for artificial lighting. It was also used to produce soaps, ointments, soups, paints, gelatine and edible fats ( e.g. margarine ) as well as shoe and leather care products. Whale oil was originally needed to make nitroglycerin .

Around 1840 there were around 900 fishing vessels, which in good years had killed up to 10,000 whales. The average American whaler in the 19th century carried about 20 to 30 men. The ships carried up to six boats including reserves. Usually three to four boats, each manned by six sailors, were used in the hunt. Only one or two men were left behind to guard the ship during the hunt.

In the 1930s it was recognized that the whale population was endangered by the heavy hunting. In 1930/1931 alone, 30,000 blue whales were killed, more than there are today in all oceans. The League of Nations passed an agreement to limit whaling in 1931, which came into force in 1935. However, this agreement was hardly effective as major whaling nations such as Norway and Great Britain were not members of the League of Nations. Around three million whales were hunted throughout the 20th century .

Whaling in Japanese waters reached its peak in the years after World War II, when the meat was used to feed the needy population, but it was not particularly respected.

However, some European nations are primarily responsible for the hunt to the brink of extinction, whose whaling stations in Antarctica were operated until the 1960s, for the sole purpose of industrial raw material extraction.

Development submarine

The history of technical diving and the development of a submersible began in the 15th century. For example, in 1405 the Nuremberg war builder Konrad Kyeser designed his first diving suit in his Bellifortis factory . Leonardo da Vinci constructed a one-man submersible on the drawing board in 1515. These ideas were pushed further and in 1604 Magnus Ebene described the basic ideas and requirements for building a submersible for the first time in a book. Dutch inventor Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel was the first to go beyond theory and built the first maneuverable underwater vehicle, a leather-covered wooden rowing boat, in 1620. On behalf of the Landgrave of Hesse , the French physicist Denis Papin , who was also a professor at the Philipps University of Marburg , constructed a submersible in 1691, but it was destroyed in the test in 1692. Nevertheless, the idea of ​​building a functioning underwater vehicle had motivated tinkerers around the world. In 1772 the first underwater vehicle in Germany was tested in the Steinhuder Meer . It was made of wood and shaped like a fish, which is why it was named pike . The boat dived for about 12 minutes. In 1776 the American David Bushnell built the " Turtle " ("sea turtle"), a construction made of iron and oak. It was considered to be the first real submarine , as two screws operated by hand cranks served as the drive, and not, as with the two predecessors, a sail or oarsman on the surface of the water drove the vehicle. In 1799 the mountain master Joseph von Baader described a construction for a two-man submarine.

The American Robert Fulton designed the submarine " Nautilus " in 1801 . It had a hand crank drive for a screw, but what was new were the rudders for lateral and depth control and a compressed air system to supply the three-person crew with breathing air. The "Nautilus" even caught the attention of Napoleon , but was ultimately considered too slow for military use. In 1850 the Bavarian let Artillery - Sergeant Wilhelm Bauer , the first built in Germany submarine, called " Brandtaucher " to water. Since the design was built under enormous cost pressure, both diving cells and sliding trim weights were dispensed with. The diving process should be done by flooding water into the boat. During the first attempt at diving on February 1, 1851 in the inner fjord of Kiel , however, the ballast shifted aft, causing the flooded water to also flow into the stern. The boat then sagged and more water seeped through the seams of the outer skin and the entry hatch. The boat sank to the bottom at about 20 meters of water. The three-man crew, including Wilhelm Bauer, waited until the internal pressure was as great as the external pressure, opened the entry hatch and floated to the surface, where they were rescued. The crashed “fire diver” was only recovered years later (1887). After various museum stations, the oldest surviving submersible in the world now has its home in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden . A copy of the model is in the Deutsches Museum für Technik in Munich.

Ictineo II: First mechanically powered submarine

On October 2, 1864, Narcís Monturiol launched the Ictineo II, the first submarine with a mechanical drive. The boat was made of wood - reinforced by copper frames - and was completely covered with copper plates about 2 mm thick. It was powered by an engine that processed magnesium peroxide , zinc, and potassium chlorate .

During the American Civil War , several hand-propelled submarines were built in 1864, including the Hunley . On February 17, 1864, she sank the enemy ship Housatonic and is therefore the first submarine in the world to destroy another ship. In this operation, however, the submarine and its crew of nine were lost. The Hunley was not found and recovered until May 4, 1995 .

On January 21, 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, was launched. On August 3, 1958, it was probably the first watercraft to pass the geographic North Pole while diving under the ice of the Arctic .

Armament

Before each battle, the masts were laid down on ancient galleys. So you didn't go into battle under full sail, as is often portrayed. The use of fire, which has been part of every battle since the invention of gunpowder, lost little in the ancient battle. The so-called "Greek fire", which is said to have burned on the water, was unknown in ancient times.

Ramspur : Increased expansion of the bow area of ​​a warship with the aim of ramming the enemy below the waterline. The early rams were used on Greek and Roman ships, for example galleys , the last rams were used on warships up to the First World War. The last decisive use of ramming spurs was made in the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 or - due to the decreasing effectiveness of the artillery against increasingly armored ships - in the naval battle of Lissa in 1866.

Falarika : (also phalarika or fire arrow) was a larger incendiary projectile that was constructed like an arrow and could be fired from a catapult or a similar throwing machine.

Onager also Scorpion, one-armed slingshot machine on ancient Roman warships for stone balls or boulders.

Greek fire in the only known contemporary depiction (12th century)

The Greek fire (today's Greek Υγρό Πυρ, igró pir - the wet or liquid fire ) was a secret weapon of the Byzantine Empire , the composition was kept top secret, and today different versions are passed down. Correctly translated, the Greek name Hygrón Pyr means "liquid fire" and was also referred to as "sea fire" or "Roman fire". One can certainly speak of a forerunner of the napalm .

Corvus In the second book of his Roman history ( Pragmateia ), Polybius describes the corvus as a bridge that was 1.2 meters wide and 10.9 meters long, with a narrow parapet on both sides. The device was probably used in the bow of the ship, where a system of cable pulls allowed the bridge to be raised and lowered. At the other end of the device, under the bridge, was a heavy spike shaped like a beak (hence the name), which was supposed to seize into the planking on the deck of the enemy ship when the corvus was lowered from the Roman side. The system created a solid connection between the ships and gave the legionnaires the opportunity to cross over to the opposing side.

In the 3rd century BC BC Rome was not a naval war power and had little experience in maritime warfare. Indeed, prior to the First Punic War, the Roman Republic did not venture into campaigns outside the Italian peninsula. Her knowledge was perfectly focused on battles on land, her greatest asset being the discipline and courage of her soldiers. The corvus now allowed the Romans to use this superiority against the more efficient Carthaginian fleet. The tactic of using their potential at sea also worked, the Romans won the battles of Mylae , Sulci , Tindaris and Ecnomus , largely due to the corvus strategy and the inability of the Carthaginians to respond.

Carronade - even Carronde, British warships contributed after 1780 carronades. The Carronde was developed in 1774 by General Robert Melville; the Carron Iron Founding and Shipping Company built the prototype Smasher . Originally designed for army use, a version that could be used on board came into use on frigates in 1779. Principle: a short barrel with a core extended towards the front as in a mortar and a comparatively small propellant powder charge, so the projectile had a lower speed than a normal cannon of the same caliber; when it hit the target, the carronade's bullet caused greater damage than the faster-flying projectile Cannon and let down a rain of splinters on the enemy.

admiral

Admiral is the highest military rank in the Navy . The name is derived from the Arabic amīr al-bahr امير البحر - "Commander at sea"; see Emir . In Germany, the term admiral was first used on the occasion of King Otto III's accession to the throne . handed down in 983, where a "Colonel Admiral" is mentioned on the list of high dignitaries.

Originally, Admiral referred to the leader of a fleet. In relation to this, several admiral ranks developed. The admiral's representative, who also led the vanguard, was referred to as the vice-admiral . The rear guard led another admiral in English rear admiral (= rear admiral), in other navies Rear Admiral called. Outward identification of the admirals and their position in the hierarchy were the flags that they carried at the top of the mast: the admiral at the mainmast , the vice admiral at the foremast and the rear admiral at the crossmast . Even today they are allowed to use their own flag as a command signal and are therefore also referred to as flag officers .

Important admirals (selection)

Khair ad-Din Barbarossa , Khizr , called Khair ad-Din (or Chair ad Din or Chaireddin) by the Christian Europeans Barbarossa , Turkish: Hızır, Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa , (* around 1467 or around 1475 in Mytilini (Turkish Midilni ) on Lesbos ; † July 4, 1546 in Istanbul ) was an Ottoman corsair in the western Mediterranean, ruler of Algiers and Kapudan Pasha of the Sublime Porte , he was called the horror of Christian seafaring.

Andrea Doria (born November 30, 1466 , † November 25, 1560 ) was a Genoese admiral and prince of Melfi . Andrea Doria comes from an old Genoese noble family Doria -Pamphilij-Landi, who had produced excellent fleet leaders for centuries. He grew up fatherless and served as a condottiere first to the Pope , then to other Italian princes . In 1503 he fought for his hometown in Corsica against the French, whom he also forced to withdraw from Liguria . He then became an admiral and fought at the head of the Genoese fleet against Turks and North African pirates .

Don Juan de Austria (Johann von Österreich; * February 24, 1547 in Regensburg ; † October 1, 1578 in Bouge , today in Belgium ) was the illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V and the civil Regensburg belt daughter Barbara Blomberg .

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter (born March 24, 1607 in Vlissingen , † April 29, 1676 ) Dutch admiral.

Horatio Nelson , 1st Viscount Nelson, KB, 1st Duke of Bronte (born September 29, 1758 in Burnham Thorpe , Norfolk , England , † October 21, 1805 ) was a British admiral who achieved some notable naval victories or played a decisive role had: 1797 St. Vincent , 1798 Abukir , 1801 Copenhagen , 1805 Trafalgar . His brisk approach earned him the French nickname "fougueux admiral", impetuous admiral. Because of his slim stature, 1.65 m tall and 60 kg heavy, the Spaniards called him "Señorito", master.

Tōgō Heihachirō ( Japanese東 郷 平 八郎; * January 27, 1848 in Satsuma Province (now Kagoshima Prefecture ); † May 30, 1934 in Tokyo ) Japanese admiral.

Wilhelm Freiherr von Tegetthoff (born December 23, 1827 in Marburg an der Drau ( Lower Styria , then Austrian Empire , now Slovenia ), † April 7, 1871 in Vienna ), admiral in the Austro-Hungarian Navy .

Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee (born June 22, 1861 in Copenhagen , † December 8, 1914 off the Falkland Islands on board the great cruiser Scharnhorst ), German admiral.

Chester William Nimitz (born February 24, 1885 in Fredericksburg , Texas , † February 20, 1966 on Yerba Buena Island , California ) was Fleet Admiral of the US Navy and Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Navy in the Pacific War during the Second World War .

Famous Admiral Gallery

  • Khair ad-Din Barbarossa

  • " Andrea Doria as Neptune " by Agnolo Bronzino

  • Don Juan de Austria

  • Michiel de Ruyter

  • Sir Horatio Nelson

  • Wilhelm Tegetthoff, lithograph by Joseph Kriehuber , 1866

  • Chester W. Nimitz as 5-star admiral, around 1945

Famous ships

The Santa Maria was the flagship of Christopher Columbus' first expedition from 1492 to 1493, on which he was looking for a western route to India . She was accompanied by the much smaller ships Niña and Pinta .

The Vasa is a Swedish galleon, it was one of the largest warships around 1627. It capsized on the test drive, was lifted from 1957, extensively restored and can now be viewed in the specially built Vasa Museum in Stockholm.

The Endeavor was James Cook's sailing ship , with which he embarked on his first voyage of discovery between 1768 and 1771.

The HMS Beagle , on which Charles Darwin traveled from 1831 to 1836, was a ten gun brig of the 'Cherokee' class (a so-called 'brig sloop ' of the Royal Navy ).

The HMS Victory served in the Mediterranean under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson. From May 1805 to August 1805 pursuit of the French fleet to the West Indies and back. The Victory was badly damaged in the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805 and then returned to Great Britain via Gibraltar for repairs.

The RMS Titanic was a passenger ship completed in 1912 and owned by the British Oceanic Steam Navigation Company , which had belonged to the International Mercantile Marine Company of the US banker J. P. Morgan since 1901 .

The SMS Emden was a small cruiser of the German Imperial Navy .

The Aurora ( Russian Аврора) is a Russian warship of the former Tsarist Navy and has been a museum ship in Saint Petersburg since its decommissioning in 1956 . The ship is a symbol of the October Revolution of 1917.

The Bismarck , named after the former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, was one of the largest and most powerful battleships in its day .

Famous Ships Gallery

Icebreaker

Polarstern in Atka Bay , Antarctica 2002 with the logo for the year of geosciences

The first icebreaker was probably the steam tug City Ice Boat No. 1 from 1837. The oldest surviving icebreaker in the world is the Finnish Tarmo , which was built in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1907 and was last used in 1970. The first civilian ship in the world with a nuclear drive was the Soviet icebreaker Lenin , which was commissioned in 1958 (44,000 HP, 19,240 GRT, 3 reactors with 90  MW thermal output ).

The Soviet Arktika class , the largest and most include nuclear-powered icebreaker in the world, with a capacity of 55,000 kW (75,000 hp) power (2 reactors à 171 MW thermal). The Rossija , Arktika , Sibir , Sovjetsky Soyuz and Yamal were built in this performance class in the Soviet Union between 1975 and 1992 . They can break through ice five meters thick. The Arktika was the first surface ship to reach the North Pole in 1977 . Previously this had only been possible with submarines .

The German polar research ship Polarstern is also built as an icebreaker and can travel through 1.5 meter thick ice at a speed of around 5 knots. On September 7, 1991 this ship reached the North Pole together with the Swedish icebreaker Oden as the first conventionally powered ship .

Passenger shipping

German emigrants board a steamer going to the USA (around 1850)

Until the middle of the 20th century , large passenger ships were mainly used as a means of transport . In regular service , they drove overseas, especially on the transatlantic route between Europe and North America and the Pacific route between the Far East and the USA. At the time of mass emigration from the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, an emigration ship began its journey from Europe to North America almost every day . However, in the course of time, aircraft took over this task, especially on longer routes .

The competition from air travel and the emerging tourism meant that large passenger ships were now used more for pleasure trips. For cruises , the passenger ships are often equipped with swimming pools and boardwalks, shops and salons.

oceanography

Oceanography : The research of the winds has been carried out with a great deal of attention since ancient times . The first map of wind conditions in the Atlantic Ocean was drawn by Edmond Halley in 1688 .

In the 18th century the beginnings of a systematic investigation of the oceanographic conditions of the world's seas began. Hydrographic services are set up in various countries to carry out maritime surveying and to issue nautical charts , nautical manuals and tide tables . Which are rapidly gaining in importance for the rapidly developing shipping industry.

The American naval officer Matthew Fontaine Maury began the systematic collection of ship observations in the mid-19th century. By evaluating these observations, he was able to publish wind and current maps in 1847, which contributed to a significant reduction in the travel times of sailing ships. His efforts to perfect the observations and to standardize them led to the first International Hydrographic Conference in Brussels in 1853 . This laid the foundation for an international observation service, in which around 6,000 fishing and merchant ships participate today.

The beginning of modern oceanography is the year 1872, when the HMS Challenger ( Challenger Expedition ) embarked on a multi-year marine journey around the world. The objective and subsequent expeditions in different countries was the first inventory of the topographical, physical, chemical and biological conditions in the oceans, about the deeper layers of which nothing was known at that time. Not only were the first basic findings collected, the required standard methods were also developed. The foundations for the development of theoretical oceanology were also laid, and the first realistic dynamic models were created. Over time, this made it necessary to abandon the rough sample measurements of the first inventory.

Maritime disasters

Sink of the Titanic on April 15, 1912

Sailor culture

Over the centuries, numerous special customs and traditions have become established among the seafarers, some of whom have been cut off from the mainland for months. This ranges from rules of conduct on board to superstition and special forms of punishment.

See also

literature

  • Geoff Bailey et al. a. (Ed.): The archeology of prehistoric coastlines. CUP, Cambridge 1988, ISBN 0-521-25036-6 .
  • George F. Bass (Ed.): Divers into the Past. Underwater archaeologists write the history of seafaring. Bucher, Luzern 1972, ISBN 3-7658-0160-7 .
  • Peter Baumann: Great moments in ship archeology. Econ, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-430-11224-9 .
  • Ekhart Berckenhagen (Hrsg.): Ships ports continents. A cultural history of seafaring. Reimer, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-496-00719-2 (exhibition catalog).
  • Robert Bohn : History of the seafaring. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62375-2 .
  • Jochen Brennecke : History of Shipping . Sigloch Edition, Künzelsau, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-8003-0285-3 .
  • John D. Clark: The Prehistory of Africa Thames & Hudson, London 1970, ISBN 0-500-02069-8 .
  • Michael D. Coe (Ed.): America before Columbus. Art, history and forms of life . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-8289-0711-3 .
  • Nathalie Couilloud: Poesie des Meeres , Edition Maritim, Hamburg 2010 ISBN 978-3-89225-637-3 .
  • Detlev Ellmers : Early medieval merchant shipping in Central and Northern Europe . Wachholz, Neumünster 1984, ISBN 3-529-01128-2 .
  • Ainslie T. Embree (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Asian History. Scribner's, New York 1988, ISBN 0-684-18619-5 (4 vols.)
  • Heide Gerstenberger / Ulrich Welke (eds.): To the sea? Maritime industries on the coasts of the North and Baltic Seas . Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-89691-450-2 .
  • Arvid Göttlicher : The ships of antiquity. An introduction to the archeology of watercraft . Gebr.-Mann-Verlag, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-7861-1419-6 .
  • Dorothea Gray: Sea creatures (Archaeologica Homerica; Vol. G). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-25406-7 .
  • Jürgen Hausen: Shipbuilding in antiquity. Contributions to the history of shipbuilding . Koehler, Herford 1979, ISBN 3-7822-0197-3 .
  • Richard Hennig : Treatises on the history of seafaring. Fischer, Jena 1928.
  • Olaf Höckmann : Ancient seafaring . Beck, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-406-30463-X .
  • Nancy Jenkins: The Ship in the Desert. Egypt at the time of King Cheops . Look around, Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-524-69020-3 .
  • Donald S. Johnson, Juha Nurminen: The Great Maritime History: 3,000 Years of Expeditions, Trade, and Navigation . 2nd edition, National Geographic / Gruner + Jahr , Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86690-074-5 .
  • John Katz: The Ancient Americans . Weidenfeld & Nicolson History, London 2001, ISBN 1-8421-2430-7 .
  • August Köster: The ancient sea creatures . De Gruyter, Berlin, 1969 (repr. Of the Berlin 1923 edition).
  • Björn Landström : The ship. From dugout canoe to atomic boat. Reconstructions in words and pictures . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1973.
  • Björn Landström: The ships of the pharaohs. Ancient Egyptian shipbuilding from 4000 to 600 BC Chr. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1974th
  • Frederic C. Lane: Maritime Republic of Venice . Prestel, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7913-0406-2 .
  • Michel Mollat ​​du Jourdin: Europe and the Sea . Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-36726-7 .
  • Hermann Müller-Karpe (ed.): On the historical significance of early seafaring . Beck, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-406-09042-7 .
  • Pausanias : Description of Greece. A travel and culture guide from ancient times . Manesse-Verlag, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-7175-1922-0 .
  • Helmut Pemsel : World history of seafaring . Koehler, Hamburg
  • Georg A. Rost: From the sea being and sea trade in antiquity. A study from a maritime-military perspective . Gruner, Amsterdam 1968.
  • Adolf Schaube: trading history of the Romanesque peoples of the Mediterranean area to the end of the crusades . Zeller, Osnabrück 973 (repr. Of the Munich edition 1906).
  • Manfred Schelzel: Viking trains . Koch, Rostock 2001, ISBN 3-935319-24-X .
  • August Strobel : The Late Bronze Age Sea Peoples Storm. A research overview . De Gruyter, Berlin, 1976, ISBN 3-11-006761-7 .
  • Wolfgang Stromer von Reichenbach (Ed.): Venice and the world economy around 1200 . Thorbecke, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-7995-2707-9 .
  • Pietro Vesconte: nautical charts . Popp, Würzburg 1978, ISBN 3-88155-027-5 .
  • Mortimer Wheeler: The Long Distance Trade of the Roman Empire in Europe, Asia and Africa . Oldenbourg, Munich 1965.
  • Egmont Zechlin : Maritime World History. Antiquity and Middle Ages , Hamburg (Hoffmann and Campe Verlag) 1947.

Web links

Commons : Maritime history  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

Presentation follows Helmut Pemsel: Weltgeschichte der Seefahrt , 2000 ff
  1. ↑ Gerd Steiner : New Alašija texts , Kadmos vol. 1 issue 2, 1962, pp. 130-138; Tassilo Schmitt : From the end of success. Reflections on the fall of the Mycenaean palace civilization. In: Gustav Adolf Lehmann , Dorit Engster, Alexander Nuss (eds.): From the Bronze Age history to the modern reception of antiquities , Syngramma vol. 1, Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2012, p. 121f.
  2. ↑ Stephen Turnbull, “Samurai Invasion. Japan's Korean War 1592-98 ”, London, 2002, Cassell & Co ISBN 0-304-35948-3 , p. 244
  3. ↑ As of November 2016