The Battle of Trafalgar

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2021

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On 21 October 1805, A British fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson met the combined might of the French and Spanish fleets off the coast of Spain. Outnumbered, Nelson used innovative tactics to break up the allied fleet and ensure success but at great cost to his men and of course himself. It was a truly crushing defeat for the Franco-Spanish forces though. With the majority of their ships destroyed or captured it confirmed Britain's naval supremacy for decades to come. In this dramatic telling of one of the most famous battles in naval history, Dan brings to life the men, the commanders, the ships, and the tactics that enabled the British fleet to emerge as victors.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello,
0:00.5	folks, Dan Snow here.
0:01.6	I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit.
0:06.1	I'd love for you to be there.
0:07.5	Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London,
0:10.4	in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years.
0:14.1	You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes.
0:17.6	Look forward to seeing you there.
0:30.2	Hello everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's history. It's the 21st of October. That is, of course, Trafalgar Day. It's the anniversary of one of the greatest sea battles in history.
0:36.5	A name imprinted on the naval history,
0:39.3	not just at Britain, but the world. Trafalgar is still so resonant today. Pubs and public spaces
0:46.5	are still named after it around Britain and its former empire. It was a battle of annihilation
0:52.3	that became like Hannibal's victory at Caney, an obsession
0:56.7	with subsequent naval strategists and thinkers and authors, not just British, but American and
1:03.3	Japanese as well.
1:04.9	I think for the public, it's the one naval battle that we keep in our memory.
1:10.6	Key Brombe, sadly, Jutland, Gravelin, the Saints, even the Battle of Nile are now,
1:17.2	well, I think, pretty much forgotten.
1:19.3	But Trafalgar endures.
1:22.1	Trafalgar endures, not just because of its association with famous place names, but because I think it was such a crushing
1:29.4	victory that has neatly come to symbolise the start of a period of British naval domination
1:35.9	of the world's oceans. I would argue that period domination began somewhat earlier, but in the
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