Tag: Ships and the sea
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The Known World
A dark world that lights up as travellers wrote it down. From 681 journeys: Europe’s recorded world covered 20% of the land in 1492 and 67% in 1900, and much of the dark had been recorded by China, the Islamic world or Polynesian voyagers first.
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Whose ships sank where?
Two centuries of shipwrecks in Europe’s seas, from Wikipedia’s lists: 106,550 wrecks placed on the map by the flag they sailed under. British ships dominate the record, but the Bay of Biscay, the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the world wars tell other stories.
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Did lighthouses work?
Between 1760 and 1900 the coasts of Britain and Ireland were ringed with new lights. I counted the wrecks recorded at each spot before and after its light was lit. The wrecks came first.
