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Royal Navy

maritime service branch of the British Armed Forces

105 dated entries naming Royal Navy, drawn from 82 separate years between 1649 CE and 1982 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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17th century

  • 1649March 4 – The first ever set of rules and regulations for England's Parliamentary Navy, Robert Blake's The Laws of War and Ordinances of the Sea, is adopted by the House of Commons, and Blake is promoted to the position of General at Sea of the English fleet.source
  • 1662October 19 – An English Buccaneer force led by Royal Navy commodore Christopher Myngs launches an attack on Santiago de Cuba.source
  • 1671March 31 – England's Royal Navy launches its first warship to have a frame reinforced by iron bars rather than an all wooden ship, an innovation by naval architect Anthony Deane. The state of the art, 102-gun ship is commissioned on January 18, 1672, as the flagship for Admiral Edward Montagu but is sunk less than five months later in the Battle of Solebay. Iron-framed ships are not attempted again for almost 50 years.source
  • 1674March 14 – Third Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Ronas Voe – The English Royal Navy captures the Dutch East India Company ship Wapen van Rotterdam in Shetland.source
  • 1689The Battle of Bantry Bay begins during the Williamite War in Ireland as the French fleet under the Marquis de Châteaurenault is able to protect its transports, unloading supplies for James II, from the English Royal Navy under the Earl of Torrington, and withdraws unpursued.source
  • 1695September 24 – All but eight of the remaining 305 crew of the Royal Navy ship are killed when the ship founders in the Florida Keys. According to the ship's logbook, an epidemic of yellow fever began on August 1 and had killed 45 people before the hurricane struck, and left all but seven crew members too ill to walk.source

18th century

  • 1706November 6 – A British attempt to conquer the Canary Islands fails when a fleet of 12 Royal Navy warships, commanded by Admiral John Jennings is forced to retreat after being met by a heavy artillery attack while sailing into Santa Cruz Baysource
  • 1707October 22 – Scilly naval disaster: Four British Royal Navy ships run aground in the Isles of Scilly, because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and at least 1,450 sailors all drown.source
  • 1708February 26 – HMS Falmouth, a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built at Woolwich Dockyard for the British Royal Navy, is launched.source
  • 1712August 23 – The British Royal Navy 60-gun ship HMS Rippon is launched at Deptford Dockyard.source
  • 1712July 8 – The British Royal Navy 50-gun ship HMS Advice is launched at Deptford Dockyard.source
  • 1712March 15 – HMS Dragon, a 38-gun fourth rate frigate of the British Royal Navy, is wrecked on Les Casquets rocks to the west of Alderney.source
  • 1718August 11 – Battle of Cape Passaro: a Spanish fleet is defeated by the British Royal Navy under Admiral George Byng, off Capo Passero, Sicily, a prelude to the War of the Quadruple Alliance.source
  • 1718November 22 – Citing violations of the amnesty agreement with Blackbeard, Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood sends a Royal Navy contingent to North Carolina, where they battle Blackbeard and his crew in Ocracoke Inlet. Blackbeard is killed in action, after receiving five musketball wounds and twenty sword lacerations.source
  • 1722February 10 – The Battle of Cape Lopez begins off of the coast of West Africa (and present-day Gabon), as the Royal Navy brings an end to the piracy of Bartholomew Roberts, nicknamed "Black Bart". Captained by Chaloner Ogle of the Royal Navy, HMS Swallow fires its cannons as Roberts sails his ship Royal Fortune toward the oncoming Swallow in order to gain time by forcing Swallow to turn around. Standing on the deck, Roberts and two of his crew are killed by the second wave of cannon fire. The remaining 272 pirate crew are captured.source
  • 1727February 22 (February 11, 1726 O.S.) – Spain besieges the British-held territory of Gibraltar, in order to recapture it. Britain's Royal Navy begins a blockade of Spanish ports and the unsuccessful siege ends with the signing of a truce on June 24.source
  • 1740April 8 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Royal Navy captures the Spanish ship of the line Princesa off Cape Finisterre and takes her into British service.source
  • 1741March 13 – The British Royal Navy takes 180 warships, frigates and transport vessels, led by Admiral Edward Vernon, to threaten Cartagena, Colombia, with more than 27,000 crew against the 3,600 defenders.source
  • 1744October 4 – In one of the greatest disasters for the Royal Navy, HMS Victory sinks in a storm in the English Channel, killing 1,100 sailors and officers it had been bringing back from Gibraltar to England, including Admiral John Balchen. The wreck will be located 264 years later, in January, 2009.source
  • 1745April 4 (March 24, old style) – Under the command of British Army General William Pepperrell, the first 4,300 American colonists in the New England Army depart Boston to liberate the French North American colony of Nova Scotia. The flotilla of 80 military transports and 18 armed escorts is scattered by a storm, but the first troops disembark at Canso, Nova Scotia, on April 15 and begin training while waiting for the arrival of the Royal Navy squadron commanded by Admiral Peter Warren.source
  • 1747November 17–19 – The Knowles Riot breaks out in Boston, Massachusetts, protesting impressment into the British Royal Navy.source
  • 1748July 29 – Royal Navy Admiral Edward Boscawen arrives at the coast of southeastern India with 28 ships, to defend Fort St. David from attacks by armies of French India. Historian Francis Grose later writes that Boscawen had brought the largest fleet "ever seen together in the East Indies", with nine ships of the line, two frigates, a sloop, and two tenders" and 14 ships of the British East India Company. Altogether, Boscawen has 3,580 sailors under his command. He then launches an offensive to destroy the French fort at Pondicherry and drive France from the subcontinent.source
  • 1755June 5 – At the entrance of the Saint Lawrence River, a squadron of Royal Navy ships, under the command of British Admiral Edward Boscawen, intercepts the nine French ships dispatched to save Canada; seven of the nine ships are concealed by fog and are able to reach their destination; another of the transports escapes.source
  • 1757September 23 – The "Raid on Rochefort" is carried out as a pre-emptive strike by Great Britain to neutralize France's Arsenal de Rochefort before the French Navy can carry out plans to invade England. Led by Royal Navy Admiral Edward Hawke, HMS Neptune and six other vessels sail in and capture the Île-d'Aix and its battery of cannons, effectively blocking the departure of any ships from the mouth of the Charante river.source
  • 1759February 17 – "The greatest fleet that had ever put out for America" departs from Portsmouth with 250 shipssource
  • 1760February 15 – The British Royal Navy ship HMS Royal Katherine runs aground off Bolt Head in England, with the loss of 699 lives.source
  • 1762March 5 – A Royal Navy fleet with 16,000 men departs Britain from Spithead and sets sail toward Cuba in order to seize strategic Spanish Empire possessions in the Americas.source
  • 1765September 16 – Harry Burrard-Neale, British Royal Navy officer and politician (d. 1840)source
  • 1767June 17 – British Royal Navy Captain Samuel Wallis becomes the first European to visit the island of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, during HMS Dolphins second circumnavigation; he also sights Mehetia.source
  • 1776January 1 – American Revolutionary War: Burning of Norfolk – The town of Norfolk, Virginia is destroyed, by the combined actions of the British Royal Navy and occupying Patriot forces.source
  • 1776June 29 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet – The American Continental Navy successfully challenges the British Royal Navy blockade off New Jersey.source
  • 1780March 11 – The First League of Armed Neutrality is formed by Russia with Denmark and Sweden to try to prevent the British Royal Navy from searching neutral vessels for contraband (February 28 O.S.).source
  • 1781December 12 – American Revolutionary War – Second Battle of Ushant: The British Royal Navy, commanded by Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt in , decisively defeats the French fleet in the Bay of Biscay.source
  • 1789April 28 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Fletcher Christian leads the mutiny on the British Royal Navy ship against Captain William Bligh, in the Pacific Ocean.source
  • 1791August 27 – Third Anglo-Mysore War: Battle of Tellicherry – Off the south-west coast of India, a British Royal Navy patrol forces a French convoy bound for Mysore to surrender.source
  • 1793October 5 – War of the First Coalition: Raid on Genoa – The British Royal Navy boards and captures French warships, sheltering in the neutral port of Genoa.source
  • 1794June 17 – Battle of Mykonos: The British Royal Navy captures .source
  • 1795The British Royal Navy makes the use of lemon juice mandatory, to prevent scurvy.source
  • 1795June 16–17 – War of the First Coalition: Cornwallis's Retreat – A British Royal Navy battle squadron commanded by William Cornwallis fends off a numerically superior French Navy fleet, off the coast of Brittany.source
  • 1797February 14 – French Revolutionary Wars – Battle of Cape St. Vincent: The British Royal Navy under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats a larger Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.source
  • 1797January 13 – Action of 13 January 1797, part of the War of the First Coalition: Two British Royal Navy frigates, HMS Indefatigable and HMS Amazon, drive the French 74-gun ship of the line Droits de l'Homme aground on the coast of Brittany, resulting in over 900 deaths.source
  • 1797November 16 – (or November 23?) – British Royal Navy frigate is wrecked on the approaches to Halifax, Nova Scotia; of the 240 on board, all but 12 are lost.source
  • 1798April 14 – Henry Mowat, Scottish-born British Royal Navy officer (b. 1734)source
  • 1798October 12 – Battle of Tory Island: A British Royal Navy squadron, under Sir John Borlase Warren, prevents French Republican ships, commanded by Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart, from landing reinforcements for the Society of United Irishmen on the County Donegal coast; Irish leader Wolfe Tone is captured and later dies of his wounds. This ends the Irish Rebellion of 1798.source
  • 1799January 27 – French Revolutionary Wars: Macau Incident – French and Spanish warships encounter a British Royal Navy escort squadron in the Wanshan Archipelago of China inconclusively.source
  • 1799October 16 – War of the Second Coalition: Action of 16 October 1799 – A Spanish treasure convoy worth more than £54,000,000 is captured by the British Royal Navy off Vigo.source
  • 1800March 17 – The British Royal Navy ship of the line, , catches fire off the coast of Capraia, with the loss of 673 lives.source
  • 1800March 26 – British Royal Navy officer Henry Waterhouse first charts the Antipodes Islands.source

19th century

  • 1801April 2 – War of the Second Coalition: First Battle of Copenhagen – The British Royal Navy, under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, forces the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy to accept an armistice. Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson leads the main attack, deliberately disregarding his commander's signal to withdraw. He is created a Viscount on May 19; Denmark-Norway is forced to withdraw from the Second League of Armed Neutrality.source
  • 1805September 29 – Admiral Nelson of the British Royal Navy takes command of the fleet off the coast of Cádiz, in order to counteract the navies of France and Spain.source
  • 1806February 6 – Battle of San Domingo: The British Royal Navy gains a victory over the French off Santo Domingo.source
  • 1807June 22 – Chesapeake–Leopard affair: British Royal Navy fourth rate attacks and boards United States Navy frigate USS Chesapeake off Norfolk, Virginia, seeking deserters. This act of British aggression plays a role in the run-up to the War of 1812.source
  • 1807September 2–7 – Battle of Copenhagen: The British Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets, to prevent the Dano-Norwegian navy from surrendering to Napoleon; 30% of the city is destroyed, and 2,000 citizens are killed.source
  • 1808March 1 – The slave trade is abolished by the United Kingdom in all of its colonies as the Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect. This year, the British Royal Navy establishes the West Africa Squadron on the coast of West Africa to enforce the abolitionist Blockade of Africa.source
  • 1809April 11–15 – Napoleonic Wars – Battle of the Basque Roads: The British Royal Navy defeats the French fleet in the mouth of the Charente, although officers on both sides face subsequent courts-martial.source
  • 1810August 20–27 – Battle of Grand Port: The French defeat a Royal Navy frigate squadron attempting to blockade a harbour on Isle de France (Mauritius).source
  • 1813June 1 – War of 1812: Capture of USS Chesapeake in Boston Harbor by British Royal Navy frigate .source
  • 1814June 6 – Beginning of the Allied sovereigns' visit to England: Tsar Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia sail from Boulogne-Sur-Mer to Dover on board the Royal Navy ship HMS Impregnable as guests of George, Prince of Wales, the regent during the incapacity of King George III.source
  • 1815July 15 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon boards off Rochefort, and surrenders to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland of the Royal Navy.source
  • 1817October 17 – The frigate is launched in Bombay for the British Royal Navy. She will still be afloat two centuries later.source
  • 1820January 30 – British Royal Navy captain Edward Bransfield, an Irishman, becomes the first person to positively identify Antarctica as a land mass.source
  • 1845August 9 – The Aberdeen Act is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, empowering the British Royal Navy to search Brazilian ships, as part of the abolition of the slave trade from Africa.source
  • 1847December 20 – British Royal Navy steam frigate is wrecked on the Sorelle Rocks in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of 246 lives and only eight survivors.source
  • 1848April 25 – Captain Francis Crozier and Commander James Fitzjames of the Royal Navy deposit the final formal record ever recovered from the Franklin Expedition in a cairn on King William Island, after deserting their ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with their surviving 105 crew members on April 22 to attempt to march to the mainland of North America.source
  • 1851December 26–27 – A British Royal Navy warship bombards Lagos Island; Oba Kosoko is wounded, and flees to Epe.source
  • 1854June 21 – Battle of Bomarsund in Åland off the coast of Finland: British Royal Navy seaman's mate Charles Davis Lucas throws a live Russian artillery shell overboard by hand before it explodes, for which he is awarded the first Victoria Cross in 1857.source
  • 1854March 11 – A Royal Navy fleet sails from Britain, under Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier.source
  • 1863August 15–17 – Bombardment of Kagoshima: The British Royal Navy bombards the town of Kagoshima in Japan in retribution, after the Namamugi Incident of 1862.source
  • 1878March 24 – The British Royal Navy frigate capsizes in the English Channel; all but 2 of the 319 crew members are killed.source
  • 1882November 16 – The British Royal Navy's destroys Abari village in Niger.source
  • 1889May 31 – The Naval Defence Act dictates that the fleet strength of the British Royal Navy must be equal to that of at least any two other countries.source
  • 1891January 19 – A British Royal Navy squadron is ordered to Chile.source
  • 1897October 13 – , a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy, is launched at Portsmouth, England; she will be deployed widely in World War I.source

20th century

  • 1901October 2 – The British Royal Navy's first submarine, Holland 1, is launched at Barrow-in-Furness.source
  • 1913October 16 – The British Royal Navy's is launched at Portsmouth Dockyard as the first oil-fired battleship.source
  • 1914December 8 – World War I: Battle of the Falkland Islands: A superior British Royal Navy squadron under Doveton Sturdee defeats ships of the Imperial German Navy under Maximilian von Spee (who goes down with his ship).source
  • 1914British Royal Navy scout cruiser HMS Pathfinder is sunk by German submarine U-21 in the Firth of Forth (Scotland), the first ship ever to be sunk by a locomotive torpedo fired from a submarine.source
  • 1914Action of 22 September 1914: German submarine U-9 torpedoes three British Royal Navy armoured cruisers, , and , with the death of more than 1,400 men, in the North Sea.source
  • 1915January 1 – WWI: British Royal Navy battleship HMS Formidable is sunk off Lyme Regis, England, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat, with the loss of 547 crew.source
  • 1915Battle of Más a Tierra: Off the coast of Chile, the British Royal Navy forces the Imperial German Navy light cruiser SMS Dresden (last survivor of the German East Asia Squadron) to scuttle.source
  • 1916May 31–June 1 – WWI: Battle of Jutland, between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, the war's only large-scale clash of battleships. The result is tactically inconclusive, but British dominance of the North Sea is maintainedsource
  • 1918November 20 – U-boats start to rendezvous off Harwich, to begin the surrender of the High Seas Fleet to the British Royal Navy; in the following week the German warships are escorted to internment in Scapa Flow.source
  • 1919May 15 – Greek landing at Smyrna: The Hellenic Army lands at Smyrna assisted by ships of the British Royal Navy.source
  • 1927March 24 – Nanking Incident: After six foreigners have been killed in Nanking, and it appears that Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party forces will overrun the foreign consulates, warships of the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy fire shells and shoot to disperse the crowds.source
  • 1938September 25 – British Royal Navy is ordered to sea.source
  • 1938September 29 – Colonel Graham Christie, former British military attaché in Berlin, is told by Carl Friedrich Goerdeler that the mobilization of the Royal Navy has badly damaged the popularity of the Nazi regime, as the German public realizes that Fall Grün is likely to cause a world war.source
  • 1939January 27 – Adolf Hitler orders Plan Z, a 5-year naval expansion programme intended to provide for a huge German fleet capable of crushing the British Royal Navy by 1944. The Kriegsmarine is given the first priority on the allotment of German economic resources.source
  • 1940April 10 – WWII: First naval Battle of Narvik – The British Royal Navy attacks the German fleet in the Ofotfjord. At Bergen, German cruiser Königsberg is sunk by British Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Skua dive bombers, flying from RNAS Hatston in Orkney.source
  • 1940April 13 – WWII: Second naval Battle of Narvik – The British Royal Navy sinks all 8 defending German destroyers in the Ofotfjord.source
  • 1940April 9 – WWII: Germany invades the neutral countries of Denmark and Norway in Operation Weserübung, opening the Norwegian campaign. The British Royal Navy attempts to attack elements of the German fleet off Norway. Vidkun Quisling proclaims a new collaborationist regime in Norway. The German invasion of Denmark lasts for about six hours, before that country capitulates.source
  • 1940November 27 – WWII: Battle of Cape Spartivento: The British Royal Navy and Italian Regia Marina battle to a draw.source
  • 1941Raid on Alexandria: Italian Regia Marina divers on human torpedoes place limpet mines on ships of the British Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet in port at Alexandria, Egypt, disabling battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant.source
  • 1941January 11 – WWII: The British Royal Navy light cruiser is bombed, catches fire and has to be sunk off Malta, with the loss of 81 crew.source
  • 1941In the North Atlantic, sinks British battlecruiser , killing all but 3 crewmen, from a total of 1,418 aboard the pride of the Royal Navy.source
  • 1941May 9 – WWII: is captured by the British Royal Navy in the North Atlantic. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine, which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.source
  • 1942April 5 – WWII: Easter Sunday Raid – Aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attack Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers and are sunk southwest of the island.source
  • 1943March 27 – WWII: British Royal Navy escort carrier is destroyed by an accidental explosion in the Firth of Clyde, killing 379 of the crew of 528.source
  • 1943October 24 – WWII: British Royal Navy destroyer is sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea, with the loss of 119 of the ship's company and 134 troops.source
  • 1947April 18 – The British Royal Navy detonates 6,800 tons of explosives, in an attempt to demolish the fortified island of Heligoland, Germany, in another of the largest man-made non-nuclear explosions in history.source
  • 1949April 20 – Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst goes up the Yangtze River, to evacuate British Commonwealth refugees escaping the advance of Mao's Communist forces. Under heavy fire, she grounds off Rose Island. After an abortive rescue attempt on April 26, she anchors 10 mi km upstream. Negotiations with the Communists to let the ship leave drag on for weeks, during which time the ship's cat Simon raises the crew's morale.source
  • 1955June 30 – The Simonstown Agreement provides for control of the naval base at Simon's Town in the Union of South Africa to transfer from the British Royal Navy to the South African Navy.source
  • 1970July 31 – Black Tot Day, the last daily distribution of one-eighth of an imperial pint of rum to sailors of the British Royal Navy, an amount that had been dispensed since 1866.source
  • 1973May 18 – Second Cod War: Joseph Godber, British Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, announces that Royal Navy frigates will protect British trawlers fishing in the disputed 80 km mi limit around Iceland.source
  • 1979March 31 – The last British soldier (belonging to the Royal Navy) leaves the Maltese Islands, after 179 years of presence. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).source
  • 1982May 2 – Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine sinks the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, killing 323 sailors. Operation Algeciras, an attempt to destroy a Royal Navy warship in Gibraltar, fails.source

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