Maritime history of Europe includes past events relating to the northwestern region of Eurasia in areas concerning shipping and shipbuilding, shipwrecks, naval battles, and military installations and lighthouses constructed to protect or aid navigation and the development of Europe. Although Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, is has a very long coastline, and has arguably been influenced more by its maritime history than any other continent.
Europe is uniquely situated between several navigable seas and intersected by navigable rivers running into them in a way which greatly facilitated the influence of maritime traffic and commerce. Great battles have been fought in the seas off of Europe that changed the course of history forever, including the Battle of Salamis in the Mediterranean, the Battle of Gravelines at the eastern end of the English Channel in the summer of 1588, in which the “Invincible” Spanish Armada was defeated, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, and World War II’s U-boat war.
Read more about Maritime History Of Europe: Ancient Times, Maritime History of The Roman Empire, The Viking Age, The Hanseatic League, Republic of Venice, The European Age of Discovery 1400 - 1600, European Innovations, Barbary Pirates, Siege of Gibraltar and The Battle of Trafalgar, Lighthouses, Oil Spills
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“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Can we never extract the tapeworm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)