Quotes About History

Spain formally declared war on 12 December.

The Spanish were naturally outraged. The British were no better than pirates.

The first shot came from the carronade on the Victory's port fo'c'sle.

carronade fired straight through the windows of the Bucentaure's upper cabin,

BRITAIN'S MILITARY DEFENCES

It was followed in sequence by the fifty broadside guns on the Victory's port side,

The view from the duke's office has changed very little in the past 200 years.

Even the saucy little schooner Pickle – a tiny thing, too small except to make herself useful to Blackwood's frigates

The Duke of York was George III's second son.

The first shots had been fired from the enemy line. The Battle of Trafalgar had begun.

The country was still a republic, but once again with a dynastic family at its head.

For a nation that had been without a real head of state since the execution of Louis XVI,

Napoleon was now one of the crowned heads of Europe.

Napoleon had 60,000 troops in Italy, scattered in different locations.

With almost fifty guns already loaded and still working on the starboard side, the Spanish won.

Lord Melville was an efficient First Lord of the Admiralty, but his past was catching up with him.

This was what Napoleon had never understood

The crossfire was so heavy that French and Spanish cannon balls smacked into each other

It had belonged to Charlemagne in its time

was said to have been made from the nails that had pinned Jesus to the cross.

Napoleon dictated the letter on 2 January 1805.

Caesar had had trouble with the currents off the English coast. Napoleon would too.

The enemy ships in her path included the Santissima Trinidad, the Redoutable and the Bucentaure,

Villeneuve's flagship.