Calliope articles from May 2000

Calliope archives from May 2000

GLOSSARY.(terminology about ships)(Glossary)
May 1, 2000... Aft: the stern or rear of a ship Armada: a fleet of warships Bark: a sailing vessel with its two forward masts square-rigged and its rear mast rigged fore-and-aft Caravel: a small, fast sailing ship with a narrow, high stern and...

PUZZLING OUT THE SPANISH ARMADA.
May 1, 2000... Legend tells us that Sir Francis Drake was playing a game of bowls on grounds near Plymouth, just inland from the coast in southwest England, when the Armada was first sighted in the English Channel. "Play out the game," Drake reportedly said....

The Shipwrecks.(Spanish Armada shipwrecks)
May 1, 2000... During the Armada's terrible voyage back to Spain, many ships were lost off the wild Atlantic coasts of Scotland and Ireland. We do not know exactly how many, since some may have vanished without trace in the open sea, while others perhaps...

INTERVIEW.
May 1, 2000... What is the most interesting artifact that you have found? It's hard to say, because objects from a shipwreck are more interesting to archaeologists as an interrelated group than as individual items. If pushed, I'd have to choose between...

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGISTS AT WORK.
May 1, 2000... Just as accident investigators sift through the scattered wreckage of an airplane crash to find out what went wrong, so do underwater archaeologists painstakingly map the debris of ancient shipwrecks to unlock historical time capsules....

Make The Shot Fit The Gun.(experiment on matching cannonballs to guns)
May 1, 2000... In the 1500s, there were no uniform standards or measurements for such things as guns and shot. Gauges and rulers were used to check the sizes of cannonballs needed for particular guns, but examples found on Armada wrecks show that the scales...

A STRUGGLE FOR POWER.(16th-century relations between England and Spain)
May 1, 2000... The second half of the sixteenth century saw two of the most powerful nations in Europe, England and Spain, joined first in a battle of words and then of arms. Our tendency is to see their conflict as primarily a religious one. Spain was, after...

THE KEY PLAYERS.(Elizabeth I of England and Philip II of Spain)
May 1, 2000... The two great adversaries of sixteenth-century Europe, Elizabeth I of England and Philip II of Spain, disagreed on almost everything. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII, the man who founded the Church of England. She was also a lifelong...

On to Calais.(Spanish Armada)
May 1, 2000... On May 28, 1588, 130 vessels, carrying nearly 30,000 men, set sail from Lisbon, Portugal, the best-defended port in the Spanish empire. For two years, the fleet had been gathering there, and now the Armada, under commander Medina Sidonia, was...

BEACONS AND BANNERS.(the use of signals during the Spanish Armada)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Signals played a crucial role in the Armada campaign. On July 29, after English scouts spotted the Armada in the Channel, a network of fire beacons spread the news throughout the kingdom. The beacons, which consisted of iron baskets filled with...

TIMELINE.(Spanish Armada)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... (1) May 28/30 The Armada sails from Lisbon. (2) June 19 The Armada puts into Corunna. (3) July 21 After resupplying, the Armada sets sail from Corunna against England. (4) July 29 The English sight the Armada and send their fleet...

THE CREWS AND THE SHIPS.(Spanish Armada)
May 1, 2000... According to a general muster taken in Lisbon in May 1588, the Armada consisted of 130 ships, 19,295 soldiers, 8,050 sailors, and 2,088 rowers. The fleet was divided into seven squadrons, each with a flagship and a vice-flagship. There were...

FACT OR FICTION.(tales about heroic figures, such as Sir Francis Drake)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Tradition maintains that as the mighty Spanish Armada came into sight off the English coast, Sir Francis Drake took a deep breath, concentrated hard--and took his next bowl. Tradition also says that, instead of panicking at the enemy's...

What Is "Bowls"?(lawn bowling: rules, equipment, and history)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Bowls has long been a popular game in England, and Sir Francis Drake certainly knew the game well. Historians believe that a variation of the game was first played in ancient Egypt and, since then, its popularity has spread throughout the...

CLASH AT GRAVELINES.(Spanish Armada)
May 1, 2000... As the Duke of Medina Sidonia dropped anchor two leagues (five miles) from the Calais cliffs, he still had not received any response from the Duke of Parma about when or where they were supposed to rendezvous to launch their invasion of...

`He Breathed and They Were Scattered'.(Spanish Armada)
May 1, 2000... Nightfall brought new perils for the Armada. Sometime in the darkness, the wind shifted to the northwest. By morning, the hapless Spanish fleet was being blown, not safely out of the English Channel, but toward the sandbanks of Zeeland. A...

A CAST AWAY'S ORDEAL.(Spanish Armada castaway)
May 1, 2000... The waves and the storm were very great, and on the other hand the land and shore were full of enemies, who ran about dancing and jumping with delight at our misfortunes. So wrote Francisco de Cuellar, one of the hundreds of Spaniards who...

Fun With Words.(word origins and stories)
May 1, 2000... WORD ORIGINS Fleet In Old English (spoken from about A.D. 400 to 1100), the verb fleotan meant "to float." As the centuries passed, fleotan gradually changed to fleote, and then finally to "fleet." The meaning broadened, and "fleet"...

BOOKS.(books on Spanish Armada)(Bibliography)
May 1, 2000... Defeat of the Spanish Armada by William W. Lace (Lucent Books, 1997) clearly, concisely, and in an interesting-to-read manner tells of the people, countries, and events that led to this key naval battle in world history. Contemporary...

RESOURCES.(Review)
May 1, 2000... The Armada, compiled and edited by John Langdon-Davies (Jackdaws Publications, 1996), includes facsimiles of contemporary maps showing the course of the Armada, a portrait of Elizabeth I, and a copy of her speech at Tilbury, as well as a study...

ALSO RECOMMENDED.(books on ships and world history)(Bibliography)
May 1, 2000... Submarines and Ships by Richard Humble (Viking, 1995) World Atlas of the Past by John Haywood (Oxford University Press, 1999), Volume 3:1492-1815

Napoleon's Battle at Waterloo.(Poem)
May 1, 2000... Napoleon was his own general, A great one at that, But soon his own greatness led to his disturbed down fall Napoleon lost that Waterloo battle Which turned into his exile on a tiny island. Melanie Lovelace...

ON THE NET.(Web sites on the Spanish Armada)
May 1, 2000... This site has a wealth of information on the events leading to and following the Armada's advance on England. It also includes many links to essays that treat both sides of the conflict and the outcome. tbls.hypermart.net/history/1588armada...

The Legacy of the Spanish Armada.
May 1, 2000... After the battle off Gravelines and the losses the Armada suffered as the ships struggled around the west coast of Ireland, Spain was no longer Europe's all-powerful nation. Its fleet had been defeated, and its treasury all but emptied....