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Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. The two men nearly crashed into the Channel along the way, however, as their balloon was weighed down by extraneous supplies such as anchors, a nonfunctional hand-operated … Continue reading
On December 12th 1901, Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi was successful in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, refuting detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message, simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”, travelled more than … Continue reading
Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old merchant navy captain, becomes the first known person to successfully swim the English Channel. Captain Webb accomplished the gruelling 21-mile crossing, which really entailed 39 miles of swimming because of tidal currents, in 21 hours and 45 minutes. During the overnight crossing from Dover, England, to Calais, France, Captain Webb drank … Continue reading
On May 19 1588, a massive Spanish fleet, known as the “Invincible Armada,” set sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish invasion army to Britain from the Netherlands. In the late 1580s, Queen Elizabeth’s support of the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands led King … Continue reading
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