Armada Defeated: England Rises as a Sea Power
The English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake used fire ships to scatter the Spanish Armada from its anchorage at Gravelines on August 8, 1588. Eight unmanned vessels, packed with pitch and gunpowder, were set ablaze and sent drifting into the tightly packed Spanish formation at midnight. Panicked Spanish captains cut their anchor cables and fled into the North Sea. The subsequent Battle of Gravelines damaged dozens of Spanish ships but sank few. What destroyed the Armada was the weather: forced to sail home around Scotland and Ireland, storms sank at least 24 ships and killed thousands of sailors on the rocky Irish coast. England lost no ships. The defeat ended Spain's attempt to invade England and overthrow Elizabeth I.
August 8, 1588
438 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Spanish Armada
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Anglo-Spanish War (1585)
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Spanish Armada#Battle of Gravelines
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Anglo-Spanish War
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Anglo-Spanish War
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Spanish Armada
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England
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Plymouth
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Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition
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Ernest Shackleton
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Antarctica
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Batalla naval de Gravelinas
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Francis Drake
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John Felton (martyr)
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1570
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Elizabeth I
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John Fingley
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Robert Bickerdike (martyr)
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1586
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Beato
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York
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1203
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Manés de Guzmán
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Diessen
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1940
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Camp de concentration de Gusen
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Austria
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Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
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Bundesliga (Alemania)
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FC Augsburg
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Geschichte Englands
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Royal Navy
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Seeherrschaft
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Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
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Dominikustag
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