Timeline of maritime activity

This is a timeline of events in maritime history.

## Prehistory

* About 45,000 BC: first humans arrive in Australia, presumably by boats and land bridge.

## Antiquity

* About 6,000 BC: Earliest evidence of dugout canoes.
* 5th millennium BC: Earliest known depiction of a sailing boat.
* About 2,000 BC:
	+ Hannu dispatches a fleet to the Land of Punt.
	+ Austronesian people migrate from Taiwan to Indonesia, preceding the colonization of Polynesia.
* 1575-1520 BC Dover Bronze Age Boat, oldest known plank vessel, was built.
* About 1175 BC: Battle of the Delta, one of the first recorded naval battles, during Ancient Egypt's war against the Sea Peoples.
* 1194-1174 BC: Supposed timespan for the events of Homer's *Iliad* and *Odyssey*.
* About 1000 BC: Nusantaran people developed tanja sail and junk sail.
* Around 600 BC: According to Herodotus, Necho II sends Phoenician expedition to circumnavigate Africa.
* 6th century BC: Canal of the Pharaohs is built in Egypt.
* 542 BC: First written record of a trireme.
* 5th century BC: Hanno the Navigator explores the coast of West Africa.
* 480 BC: Battle of Salamis, arguably the largest naval battle in ancient times.
* 247 BC: Lighthouse of Alexandria completed.
* 214 BC: Lingqu Canal built.
* 31 BC: Battle of Actium decides the Final War of the Roman Republic.
* 100 AD: Large ships called K'un-lun Po sailed between China and India.
* About 200 AD: *Chuan* (junk ships) are developed in China. Chinese people learned junk rig from Malay people visiting their southern coast.

## Middle Ages

* 793: The raid of Lindisfarne, first recorded Viking raid
* 945: Malay people from Srivijaya attacked coast of Tanganyika and Mozambique with 1000 boats and attempted to take the citadel of Qanbaloh.
* 984: Pound locks used in China; See Technology of the Song Dynasty
* About 1000: Leif Erikson crossed the Labrador Sea to reach North America. And much of East Polynesia settled by Polynesians.
* 1025: Chola invasion of Srivijaya
* 1088: *Dream Pool Essays* by Shen Kuo, first description of a magnetic compass.
* 1159: Lübeck is rebuilt, and the Hanseatic League is founded.
* About 1190: Alexander Neckam writes the first European description of a magnetic compass.
* 13th century: Portolan charts are introduced in the Mediterranean.
* About 1280: Polynesian settlers arrive at New Zealand, the last major landmass to be populated.
* 1274: First Mongol invasion of Japan.
* 1325-1354: Ibn Batuta visits much of Africa and Asia.
* 1398: Majapahit invades Kingdom of Singapura, with 300 jong and no less than 200,000 men.
* 1405: Zheng He's expeditions begins.

## Age of Discovery

See also: Timeline of European exploration
* 1488: Bartolomeu Dias reaches the Cape of Good Hope.
* 1492: Christopher Columbus' first voyage, first recorded non-Arctic crossing of the Atlantic
* 1497: John Cabot reaches North American mainland, as first European since the Vikings.
* 1498
	+ Vasco da Gama completes the Cape Route from Europe to India.
	+ Columbus reaches continental South America.
* 1513: Jorge Álvares completes the first voyage from Europe to China.
* 1522: Ferdinand Magellan's last ship arrives in Europe, first recorded circumnavigation, and crossing of the Pacific Ocean
* 1571: Battle of Lepanto, last major naval battle fought entirely between galleys.
* 1580: Francis Drake returns home from Nehalem Bay, Oregon to become the 1st circumnavigation by an Englishman.
* 1588: The Spanish Armada is destroyed, shifting naval superiority to England.
* 1602: The Dutch East India Company is founded.
* 1606: Willem Janszoon becomes the first European to reach Australia.
* 1620: Cornelis Drebbel constructs the first submarine.
* 1628: The *Vasa* sinks in Stockholm harbour on its maiden voyage.
* 1736: John Harrison tests the first successful marine chronometer.
* 1757: First sextant constructed
* 1771: James Cook completes the first circumnavigation without casualties to scurvy.
* 1790: Battle of Svensksund, the last major battle with participation of galleys.

## Rise of steamboats and motorships

* 1783: Claude de Jouffroy constructs the first recorded steamboat.
* 1790: Canal Mania begins in Great Britain.
* 1805: The battle of Trafalgar marks the rise of the Royal Navy to a century of world domination.
* 1807: *North River Steamboat*, the first commercially successful steamboat, is launched.
* 1819: *SS Savannah* under Capt. Moses Rogers makes first transatlantic crossing using (auxiliary) steam power.
* 1820: Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen discovers mainland Antarctica; the only recorded discovery of an uninhabited continent.
* 1845: *SS Great Britain* becomes first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic.
* 1853: American commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives in Tokyo Bay, enforcing the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.
* 1856: Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law outlaws privateering.
* 1859: The first ironclad warship, the *Gloire*, is launched.
* 1861: USS Ice Boat (1861), the first purpose-built icebreaker, is launched.
* 1862: The Battle of Hampton Roads becomes the first battle between ironclads.
* 1864: *Ictineo II*, the first submarine powered by an internal-combustion engine.
* 1869: The Suez Canal opens.
* 1871: Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld braves the Northeast Passage on the *Vega*
* 1880: The American passenger steamship *Columbia* becomes the first outside usage of Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb.
* 1893: The Corinth Canal opens.
* 1894: The *Turbinia*, the world's first turbine-powered ship, is launched.
* 1895: The Kiel Canal opens.
* 1903: The *Vandal*, the world's first diesel-electric ship, is launched.
* 1906
	+ Roald Amundsen conquers the Northwest Passage on the *Gjøa*.
	+ *HMS Dreadnought* launched, commencing the era of battleships.
* 1912: The *Titanic* sinks in the North Atlantic. The wreck could not be discovered until 1985.
* 1914: The Panama Canal opens.
* 1916: Battle of Jutland, claimed to be the largest naval battle in history, counting tonnage of engaged ships.
* 1918: *HMS Furious (47)* becomes the first aircraft carrier used in warfare.
* 1937: *USS Leary (DD-158)* becomes the first American vessel to be equipped with radar.
* 1941: The attack on Pearl Harbor starts the Pacific War.
* 1942: The battle of Midway marks the demise of battleships and the domination of aircraft carriers.
* 1944: Normandy landings, the largest amphibious invasion in history.
* 1951: The first purpose-built container ships enter operation.
* 1955: *USS Nautilus (SSN-571)*, the world's first nuclear-powered vessel, is launched.
* 1957: Aircraft supplants shipping as the leading mode of passenger Transatlantic travel
* 1959:
	+ The *USS Skate (SSN-578)* surfaces at the North Pole.
	+ The SR.N1, the first practical hovercraft, is launched.
* 1960: The *Trieste* descends to the Challenger Deep.
* 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis; a major naval confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
* 1977: Russian icebreaker *Arktika* makes the first surface voyage to the North Pole.
* 1982: Falklands War, one of the largest naval campaigns since World War II.
* 1985: The *Sea Shadow (IX-529)*, an early stealth ship, is launched.
* 1987: The *MV Doña Paz* is lost, claiming 4,375 lives, the worst peacetime maritime disaster in history.
* 1994:
	+ The Global Positioning System becomes operational.
	+ M/S Estonia is lost in the Baltic Sea.

* 2005: Piracy in Somalia becomes an international concern.
* 2007: Arktika 2007 becomes the first manned expedition to the North Pole seabed.
* 2012:
	+ M/S Costa Concordia disaster.
	+ James Cameron reaches the Challenger Deep solo with the Deepsea Challenger.

* 2013: MS Nordic Orion becomes the first freighter to complete the Northwest Passage.