Category: Background

Something a little different this week… Living in the twenty-first century as we do, with access to Google Earth, Google[…]

(This post is a continuation of Shipbuilding in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries – Part 1. If you haven’t done[…]

Have you ever wondered how people built wooden sailing ships in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The process seems, on[…]

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Charles V’s ill-fated expedition against Algiers was the storm that put an end to[…]

When people hear the phrase “the Spanish Armada,” they invariably think of the great fleet of ships sent by the[…]

When most people think of Barbary corsairs, they think of them as being Muslims from North Africa. They were. And[…]

Barbary corsair ships—like all pirate ships—were armed with cannon. The oared galleys that corsairs used in the Mediterranean had cannon[…]

  (This post is a continuation of Cannons – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to[…]

(This post is a continuation of Cannons – Parts 1 and 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best[…]

(This post is a continuation of Muskets – Parts 1 & 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best[…]