English Channel

arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France

58 dated entries naming English Channel, drawn from 52 separate years between 55 BCE and 1990 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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1st century BC

55 BCESummer – Julius Caesar defeats the Usipetes and the Tencteri, two Germanic tribes who have been driven across the Rhine River by the Suebi. He spreads Roman law and order, and makes the whole country as far as the Channel accessible to trade.source

3rd century

285Carausius, naval commander at Bononia (modern-day Boulogne), is given the task of clearing the English Channel of Frankish and Saxon pirates.source

4th century

305Summer – Constantine joins his father at Bononia (Boulogne) in Gaul; they cross the Channel to Britain and make their way to Eboracum (York), capital of Britannia Secunda and home to a large military base. They campaign with success against the Picts.source

5th century

407Roman Civil war of 407–415:Constantine III, a general (magister militum), declares himself Roman emperor. To extend his dominion over Gaul and Spain, he takes practically all the Roman garrisons from Britain and crosses the English Channel. Constantine occupies Arles and establishes tenuous authority over Gaul, sharing control with marauding "barbarians". This is generally seen as the beginning of Rome's withdrawal from Britain.source

6th century

585Columbanus, Irish missionary, gathers 12 companions for his journey to Britain, probably to the Scottish coast. After a short time, he crosses the English Channel and lands in Brittany (France).source

8th century

786Cyneheard is executed and succeeded by Beorhtric, through the support of King Offa of Mercia. His rival claimant to the Wessex throne, a distant nephew of the late king Ine, named Egbert, is driven across the Channel.source

9th century

885Danish Vikings land in Kent and besiege Rochester. Town defences having been improved, the city holds out long enough for Alfred the Great to organize an army. He forces the Vikings to flee back across the Channel, to the Continent.source

11th century

1048King Edward the Confessor goes to war against Flanders, blockading the English Channel with a fleet based at Sandwich, Kent.source
1099November 11 – Great floods around the North Sea and English Channel.source

12th century

1120November 25 – The White Ship sinks in the English Channel off Barfleur. Henry I's only legitimate son, William Adelin, is among 300 (many of them Anglo-Norman nobility) who drown.source

13th century

1205Summer – King Philip II ("Augustus") conquers most of the Angevin lands, including much of Aquitaine. Fearing a French invasion of England itself, John, King of England ("Lackland") requires every English male over 12 years to enter a mobilization "for the general defense of the realm and the preservation of peace". John prepares an expedition force of his own, but the barons refuse to cross the Channel.source
1217August 24 – Battle of Sandwich: An English fleet under Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent defeats the French armada (10 large ships and 70 supply ships) in the English Channel, near Sandwich. The French fleet is commanded by Eustace the Monk, a mercenary and pirate, who fights for both the French and English when it suits his needs. The French fleet is bringing more men and supplies to assist Prince Louis, in his quest to take the English throne. The English capture Eustace's flagship, and Eustace himself is (while offering 10,000 marks for ransom) beheaded.source
1287December 14 – A huge storm and associated storm tide in the North Sea and English Channel, known as St. Lucia's flood in the Netherlands, kills thousands and reshapes the coastline of the Netherlands and England. In the Netherlands, a fringing barrier between the North Sea and a shallow lake collapses, causing the fifth-largest flood in recorded history – which creates the Zuider Zee inlet, and kills over 50,000 people. It also gives sea access to Amsterdam, allowing its development as an important port city.source

14th century

1346July 11–12 – Edward III and the English army cross the English Channel and begin an invasion of France.source
1346March 18 – The French prepare to defend the channel coasts.source
1348By June 24 – The Black Death pandemic reaches England, having probably been brought across the English Channel by fleas on rats aboard a ship from Gascony to the south coast port of Melcombe (modern-day Weymouth, Dorset); by November it will have reached London and by 1350 will have killed one third to a half of its population.source
1372June 22 – The Kingdom of France and the Crown of Castile defeat the Kingdom of England in the Battle of La Rochelle, and France gains control of the English Channel for the first time since 1340.source

15th century

1403October 18 – An English fleet organised by John Hawley of Dartmouth and Thomas Norton of Bristol seizes seven French merchant vessels in the English Channel.source
1406March 22 – On "Monday before the Annunciation", Prince James, the 10-year-old son of King Robert III of Scotland, is captured while being taken across the English Channel from Scotland to France when the ship he is on, Maryenknyght, by privateers Hugh atte Fen, William Oxeney, John Hacon and Nicholas Steyward of Cley. The crown prince is delivered to London where he is held hostage by King Henry IV of England for the next 18 years.source
1443August 14 – The Siege of Dieppe, an attempt by England's Earl of Shrewsbury to capture the French port at Normandy and France's access to the English Channel, fails after nine months.source

16th century

1522July 4 – Brought on ships across the English Channel, an English fleet and army under the command of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, attacks Brittany and Picardy after landing at Le Dourduff-en-Mer, near Calais, and burns and loots the countryside.source
1544May 25 – On orders of King Henry VIII, the English Navy, commanded by Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, begins crossing the English Channel to invade from the west with 19,000 troops, while Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, commences an invasion of France from the east.source
1563April 5 – The English galleon ship HMS Grehound strikes a sandbar off of the coast of Rye, East Sussex and sinks with all hands in the English Channel, including the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, John Malyn.source
1588May 28 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, begins to set sail from the Tagus estuary, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia and Juan Martínez de Recalde, heading for the English Channel (it will take until May 30 for all of the ships to leave port).source
1597October 21 – The Spanish Armada reaches the English Channel without opposition. An English ship sees the invading force's approach, but is intercepted and sunk, with the survivors being taken prisoner. The Armada encounters a storm the next day.source

17th century

1633November 22 – commissioned by Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore to transport 140 English colonists to the province of Maryland in America, The Ark and another ship, the Dove (with 128 settlers), depart Gravesend in England for the New World. Three days later, the two ships become separated by a storm in the English Channel, and the crew of The Ark assumes that the Dove sank.source
1646March 2 – The future Charles II of England escapes from Cornwall into exile across the English Channel.source

18th century

1703December 7–10 (November 26–29 O.S.) – The Great Storm of 1703, an extratropical cyclone, ravages southern England and the English Channel, killing at least 8,000, mostly at sea. The Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth is destroyed in the storm together with its designer Henry Winstanley and many buildings on land are damaged.source
1779August 17 – Action of 17 August 1779: The 64-gun British warship HMS Ardent is captured by France in the English Channel off of Plymouth after an ineffective attempt by the British captain to properly aim its cannons at the French frigate Junon.source
1785January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.source

19th century

1850March 31 – The paddle steamer , bound from Cork to London, is wrecked in the English Channel with the loss of all 250 on board.source
1851November 13 – The first protected submarine telegraph cable is laid, across the English Channel.source
1864June 19 – American Civil War: Battle of Cherbourg – Confederate States Navy CSS Alabama is sunk in a single-ship action with USS Kearsarge, in the English Channel off the coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, France.source
1875August 25 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel.source
1878March 24 – The British Royal Navy frigate capsizes in the English Channel; all but 2 of the 319 crew members are killed.source
1899January 5 – The collision of a British steamer and a French steamer kills 12 people on the English Channel.source
1899March 11 – The world's first wireless distress signal is sent by wireless telegraphy (in Morse code) to the East Goodwin light vessel when German cargo-carrying barquentine Elbe runs aground in fog in the English Channel.source
1899March 27 – Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmits a radio signal across the English Channel.source

20th century

1909July 25 – Louis Blériot is the first man to fly across the English Channel (thus a large open body of water) in a heavier-than-air craft.source
1910June 2 – Charles Rolls became the first person to fly across the English Channel and back without stopping.source
1912April 16 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.source
1912July 1 – Harriet Quimby, who set the record as the first woman to fly the English Channel two months previously, dies in Squantum, Massachusetts, after her brand-new two-seat Bleriot monoplane crashes, killing both Quimby and her passenger.source
1916March 24 – French ferry is torpedoed by in the English Channel, with at least 50 killed (including the composer Enrique Granados), resulting on May 4 in the Sussex Pledge by Germany to the United States.source
1918August 3 – WWI: Australian hospital ship is torpedoed and sunk in the English Channel on passage from Le Havre to Southampton by German submarine with the loss of 123 of the 801 people on board.source
1921January 20 – British K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel; all 57 on board are lost.source
1926August 6 – American Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel, from France to England.source
1942February 11–13 – WWII: Operation Cerberus: A Kriegsmarine (German navy) squadron comprising the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and their escort, dash from Brest through the English Channel to German ports; the British fail to sink any of them.source
1942May – Operation Pluto: The plan to construct oil pipelines under the English Channel, between England and France, is tested in the River Medway.source
1944December 15 – A USAAF utility aircraft carrying bandleader Major Glenn Miller disappears in heavy fog over the English Channel, while flying to Paris.source
1944British Group Captain James Stagg correctly forecasts a brief improvement in weather conditions over the English Channel, which will permit the following day's Normandy landings to take place (having been deferred from today due to unfavourable weather).source
1948July 6 – The world's first Air Car-ferry service is flown by a Bristol Freighter of Silver City Airways, from Lympne to Le Touquet across the English Channel.source
1950August 8 – American Florence Chadwick swims the English Channel in 13 hours, 22 minutes, beating the women's record for the crossing.source
1953June 30 – The first roll-on/roll-off ferry crossing of the English Channel, Dover–Boulogne, takes place.source
1958August 18 – Brojen Das from East Pakistan swims across the English Channel in a competition, the first Bangali as well as the first Asian to ever do it. He is first among 39 competitors.source
1959July 25 – The British SR.N1 hovercraft crosses the English Channel from Calais to Dover in just over 2 hours, on the 50th anniversary of Louis Blériot's first crossing by heavier-than-air craft.source
1966April 30 – Regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued in 2000).source
1979June 12 – Bryan Allen flies the man-powered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel.source
1990December 1 – Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the English Channel seabed, establishing the first land connection between Great Britain and the mainland of Europe for around 8,000 years.source