By 1771 goods from her colonies were pouring into Britain. ibid.
Recruits as young as ten were sent to sea for months at a time. ibid.
Britain was naming and mapping the world. ibid.
Marine art had never been so popular. ibid.
Britain was now at war with her own subjects ... a transatlantic war. ibid.
Sheathing just one ship could require fifteen tons of copper. ibid.
The lucrative sugar trade powered the British economy. ibid.
Britain gave up her thirteen colonies in North America but retained key possessions all across the globe including her vital Caribbean colonies. ibid.
From 1799 every British subject earning more than £60 a year was charged income tax at a rate of 10%. ibid.
The Battle of Trafalgar has seared itself into the national psyche. ibid.
The Royal Navy was here to open up China for business. Dan Snow, Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World IV: Sea Change
Gunboat diplomacy – British interests secured down the barrel of a gun. ibid.
Europe was in the grip of dreadnought-building fever. ibid.
There would be no more Jutlands. ibid.
On May 31st 1916 the British and German fleets clashed in what would be the biggest and bloodiest naval battle of the First World War, and in fact in the whole of navy history – the Battle of Jutland. This was the era of the Dreadnought … The was one battle that didn’t go to plan. Dan Snow, Battle of Jutland: The Navy’s Bloodiest Day, BBC 2016
Britain had lost more than 60,000 men. ibid.
The British had 151 ships; the Germans 99. And Britain expected an easy victory .. the Royal Navy came off worse. ibid.
‘The greater number of injuries were caused by burns.’ ibid.
There were only 18 survivors of the Queen Mary. ibid.
A thousand years ago on this patch of land in England two great armies clashed. Over 15,000 soldiers from England and France fought a bloody struggle over one of the greatest prizes in Europe: the throne of England. The battle lasted only one day, but it was to change the face of Britain for ever … A fight to the death between Harold the Saxon and William the Norman, and it led to a cultural revolution in Britain. Peter and Dan Snow, Battlefield Britain: Hastings, BBC 2004
Together with his brothers, Harold ran most of the country. He wasn’t just a politician, he was also a warrior … Harold thought he was the obvious successor to the Throne of England. ibid.
William was outraged: he saw Harold’s coronation as a declaration of war. He decided to invade. ibid.
Horses were at the heart of the Norman battle plan ... William’s 2,000 mounted knights gave him an awesome fighting machine. ibid.
We still haven’t eliminated the scourge of war. In fact, the last 100 years have seen warred waged on a greater scale than at any other time in human history. Peter & Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e1: 1918 Western Front, BBC 2007
The most destructive war the world had yet seen. Fighting involved tens of millions of troops from all round the world. ibid.
There was one battle more than any other that harnessed the power of these new weapons to turn the tide of the war: it was fought here in north-east France on the Western front in 1918: it was the Battle of Amiens. ibid.
6,500 guns and 3,500 trench mortars fired virtually simultaneously along a 46-mile front … A concoction of lethal gasses that held in the air for hours … A massive dent in the British front line. ibid.
In the summer of 1942 these two tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific ocean west of Hawaii were at the heart of an epic battle fought between the navies of Japan and the United. It was a battle that decisively altered the course of the Second World War. Peter and Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e2: 1942 Midway
America had lost the best part of its Pacific fleet. ibid.
Stalingrad: Over sixty years ago a battle was fought in this great Russian city that would be the turning point of the Second World War. Peter & Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e3: 1942 Stalingrad
In May 1942 Hitler put his plan into action. He sent two million men, nearly two-thirds of all his troops in the Soviet Union, through the Russian steps towards the oil-fields. ibid.
Stalingrad was all but destroyed. ibid.
Paulus chose not to commit suicide but to surrender himself. ibid.
On the banks of this river in Korea in 1951 America, Britain and their United Nations allies were locked in a battle with tens of thousands of communist troops. What moved the allies to cross the world to fight here in Korea only five years after the bloodshed of the Second World War was their drive to stop communism spreading further. Peter and Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e4: 1951 Korea
The Korean war was waged by men from 24 different countries around the world. ibid.
On January 31st 1968 Saigon: Suddenly savage fighting broke out: it was the beginning of a nationwide communist assault that would change the course of the long-running Vietnam war. Peter and Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e5: 1968 Vietnam
A war that would rage for more than a decade. ibid.
The Middle East was a battlefield for most of the twentieth century. One of the hardest fought wars of all was in 1973 when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel. Peter & Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e6: Middle East
The October war of 1973: Israel had won total control of the skies. ibid.
For the Arabs the Six Days War was an utter disaster. ibid.
One of the biggest tank battles in history. ibid.
In April 1982 an invasion by Argentina provoked one of the most ambitious military undertakings in British history. Britain sent a naval task force and 15,000 men to fight for a small group of islands on the edge of the Antarctic. Britain was at war with Argentina. Peter & Dan Snow, 20th Century Battlefields s1e7: 1982 Falklands
Home to only 2,000 people. ibid.
For two centuries both countries have claimed the Falklands. ibid.
Military rule had collapsed in Argentina. ibid.
In 1991 the small Arab state of Kuwait was at the centre of the last major war of the 20th Century. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had invaded Kuwait, putting nearly half the world’s oil within his reach. Virtually everyone agreed: he had to be stopped. Peter and Dan Snow 20th Century Battlefields s1e8: 1991 Gulf War
In the early hours of August 2nd 1990, Iraq’s army shocked the world by invading its neighbour Kuwait. ibid.
One of the biggest deployments of troops since World War II was underway. ibid.
Operation Desert Storm had begun. ibid.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor they did so intending to smash in one single blow America’s resolution and its inability to retaliate. They failed miserably on both counts. The Japanese sank or badly damaged seven antiquated American battleships, but since they were lost in harbor many of their crews were saved. Battle of Midway, Movies4men 2013
May 1 1942: South of the Solomon Islands: five cruisers and eleven destroyers. ibid.
May 7 1942: Both sides suffered equally from errors and accidents. ibid.
Japan’s admirals were already planning another battle … Midway: May 20 1942: a lengthy radio signal in code from Admiral Yamamoto to his fleet. ibid.
The Japanese had attacked the Aleutian Islands: oil dumps, barracks, hospital and a church. ibid.
As the fires burned over Midway, the extent of the damage was surveyed … A second air attack was needed. ibid.
Four of Japan’s finest carriers had gone. ibid.
The Americans had turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. ibid.