Showing titles in Maritime History & Piracy

It was a frigid night in February 2013 when the five young fishermen vanished. The crew of the Miss Ally - a 12-metre Cape Islander from Woods Harbour, Nova Scotia - was fishing for halibut far off the Nova Scotia coast when their boat’s spotlight malfunctioned. A vicious winter storm was approaching from her south, and all other boats at the fishing grounds were steaming for shore. Unable to locate his longlining gear, the Miss Ally’s young captain decided to stay an extra day to retrieve the gear and, hopefully, a big catch.

A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States.

Piraten zeigt uns einige der schillerndsten Figuren, die diese Berufssparte hervorgebracht hat. Über Jahrhunderte ließen sich ehrgeizige Regenten durch Männer wie Henry Morgan oder Francis Drake ihre Kassen füllen. Mutige und unerschrockene Männer auf beiden Seiten ließen ihr Leben im Kampf um Gold und teure Handelsgüter. Sie begründeten den Mythos von Freiheit und Abenteuer auf See. Grandiose Leinwandauftritte von Schauspielern wie Johnny Depp oder Errol Flynn nähren unser Bild vom lebenslustigen Piraten. Trinkfest, rauhbeinig und bei Damen äußerst charmant. Doch war die große Ära des Piratentums wirklich so romantisch?

Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation's hardscrabble coastlines.

In der Nacht des 14. April 1912 kollidierte die Titanic, die als Wunder der Technik und praktisch unsinkbar galt, auf ihrer Jungfernfahrt mit einem Eisberg und versank binnen Stunden. Der Untergang der Titanic zählt zu den größten Katastrophen in der Geschichte der Seefahrt. Eine Hördokumentation mit O-Tönen, Geräuschen und Musik.

Ces deux heures d'entretien permettent à l'auditeur de redécouvrir la vie à bord des terre-neuvas, qui du XVe jusqu'au début du XXe siècle pratiquaient la pêche à la morue au large de Terre-Neuve, et des cap-horniers ? Puissants voiliers qui naviguèrent sur toutes les mers du globe.

Piraten, die "wilden Herrscher der Weltmeere". Legendäre Gestalten wie Klaus Störtebeker, Francis Drake, Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Anne Bonny...

At the outbreak of the War of 1812, America's prospects looked dismal. It was clear that the primary battlefield would be the open ocean but America's war fleet, only 20 ships strong, faced a practiced British navy of more than a thousand men-of-war. Still, through a combination of nautical deftness and sheer bravado, the American navy managed to take the fight to the British and turn the tide of the war.

Two Years Before the Mast is Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s captivating account of life as a common sailor on board a merchant ship in the early 1830s. Dana captures the cruel conditions on board the ship, the injustices of merchant seamen at the hands of brutally unforgiving captains, and the treacherous icy weather at Cape Horn. An iconic maritime memoir said to have influenced Herman Melville, Two Years Before the Mast remains one of America’s greatest and most vivid seafaring tales. 

On October 31, 1803, the frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground on a reef a few miles outside the harbor of Tripoli. After hours under fire, the Philadelphia, aground and defenseless, surrendered, and 307 American sailors and marines were captured. The bashaw ordered the crew moved into an old warehouse, and the officers were eventually moved to a dungeon beneath the Bashaw's castle. While the officers were treated as "gentlemen," although imprisoned, the sailors worked as enslaved laborers.

Hard Aground brings together three intertwined stories documenting the US Navy's strategic and materiel evolution from the end of Civil War through the First World War. The first story focuses on the reconstruction of the US Navy following the swift and near-total dismantling of the Union Navy infrastructure after the Civil War. Jampoler argues that the federal government discovered that the fleet requested by the navy, and paid for by Congress, was the wrong fleet.

Ensign Stephen Davenport was the most severely under qualified of the Ninety-Day Wonders, the derisive term for commissioned officers in the Naval Reserve with only ninety days of training, all of which were on dry land. For his final navigation exam, he actually plotted a course that landed a fictional destroyer somewhere in the Sierra Mountains. Nevertheless, in in August of 1953, he reported to his first assignment aboard the USS Vermillion. He would be overseeing the First Division for training in amphibious landings.

The Great Lakes shipping industry can trace its lineage to 1679 with the launching on Lake Erie of the Griffon, a 60-foot galley weighing nearly 50 tons. Built by LaSalle, a French explorer who had been commissioned to search for a passage through North America to China, it was the first sailing ship to operate on the upper lakes, signaling the dawn of the Great Lakes shipping industry as we know it today. Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes is the most thorough and factual study of the Great Lakes shipping industry written this century.

Untamed Waters: The Golden Age of Piracy is a captivating and thoroughly researched exploration of history's most notorious era, delving into the thrilling world of pirates and their daring exploits on the high seas. From the sun-kissed shores of the Caribbean to the treacherous waters of the Indian Ocean, this book unravels the motivations behind piracy and its impact on global trade and politics. With meticulous citations, it serves as both an engaging listen for history enthusiasts and a valuable academic resource.

Berättelser om sagoskeppet Titanic slutar aldrig att fascinera. Titanic är en av de främsta mytiska berättelserna i modern tid och har kommit att bli en av västerlandets starkaste symboler, för såväl triumf och kärlek som för tragedi och sorg. Claes-Göran Wetterholm, en av världens främsta experter inom ämnet, berättar i denna bok om människorna som var ombord på fartyget eller som på andra sätt hade med händelsen att göra. Det är ett intimt porträtt av riktiga människor och deras livsöden.

Experience first-hand the reality of life in the British Navy sailing from the Viking invasion of Anglo Saxon England to a young sailor’s grief at the death of Lord Nelson, from the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Jutland and from organised press gangs to murderous mutinies. Told entirely in the words of those who were there. 

Loin des légendes et des fantasmes, la première véritable histoire de la piraterie. Barbe-Noire est sans doute le plus illustre, Anne Bonny la plus féminine et Jack Sparrow le plus attirant (et surtout le moins réel !), mais que sait-on véritablement des pirates, corsaires et flibustiers ? S'il est certain que les pilleurs des mers ont régné sur les Caraïbes au XVIIIe siècle, on ne peut toutefois pas résumer leur histoire à ce truisme.

The fearsome wrath of the storms that brew over the Great Lakes has challenged and defeated some of the staunchest vessels constructed in the shipyards of port cities along the US and Canadian lakeshores. Here Richard Gebhart tells the tales of some of these ships and their captains and crews, from their launches to their sad demises—or sometimes, their celebrated retirements. This volume is a must-hear for anyone intrigued by the maritime history of the Great Lakes. 

Soon after the first maritime trade routes became operational, seafaring bandits appeared to prey upon the cargo, crews, and ships of others. Crimson Waters traces the history of piracy around the globe, stretching back from its roots in 2500 BCE, through the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and up to the modern-day pirates who still threaten boats along coastlines and on the open seas.

The greatest controversy in the history of the US Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the US brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his coconspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea.