United States & Macedonian - Public domain drawing

The first recorded sea battle occurred about 1210 BC: Hittites defeated and burned the Cyprus fleet. Athens protected itself from Persia by building a fleet paid for by silver mines profits. Romans developed the technique of grappling and boarding enemy ships with soldiers. Constantinople invented a Greek fire, a flamethrower to burn enemy's ships. Torpedo was invented by the Arab Hasan al-Rammah in 1275. With the Age of Discovery, naval actions in defense of the new colonies grew in scale. In 1588, Spain sent Armada to subdue the English fleet of Elizabeth, but Admiral Sir Charles Howard won the battle, marking the rise of the Pax Britannica. Anglo-Dutch Wars were the first wars to be conducted entirely at sea. Most memorable of these battles was the raid on the Medway, in which the Dutch sailed up the river Thames, and destroyed most of the British fleet. The 18th century was a period of continuous naval wars, in the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic Ocean, and in the Baltic Sea. The Napoleonic Wars culminating in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. With the advent of the steamship, it became possible to create massive gun platforms and to provide them with heavy armor protection. The battle of the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor in the American Civil War that symbolized the changing times. In the 20th century, the steel-armored battleships with large shell turret guns emerged. The Russo-Japanese Battle of Tsushima in 1905 was the first test of the new concepts, resulting in Japanese victory. Airpower became key to navies throughout the 20th century, moving to jets launched from ever-larger carriers, and augmented by cruisers armed with guided missiles and cruise missiles. During the Pacific War of World War II, the carriers and their airplanes were the stars and the United States became the world's dominant sea power. The Falklands War, however, showed the vulnerability of modern ships to sea-skimming missiles. Parallel to the development of naval aviation was the development of submarines. In the 1950s the Cold War inspired the development of ballistic missile submarines.

The Americana collection of Marian Sadtler Carson (1905-2004) spans the years 1656-1995 with the bulk of the material dating from 1700 to 1876. The collection includes more than 10,000 historical letters and manuscripts, broadsides, photographs, prints and drawings, books and pamphlets, maps, and printed ephemera from the colonial era through the 1876 centennial of the United States. It is believed to be the most extensive existing private collection of early Americana. The collection includes such important and diverse historical treasures as unpublished papers of Revolutionary War figures and the Continental Congress; letters of several American presidents, including Thomas Jefferson; a manuscript account of the departure of the first Pony Express rider from St. Joseph, Mo.; and what may be the earliest photograph of a human face. Many of the rare books and pamphlets in the collection pertain to the early Congresses of the United States, augmenting the Library's unparalleled collection of political pamphlets and imprints. The Carson Collection adds to the Library's holdings the first presidential campaign biography, John Beckley's Address to the people of the United States with an Epitome and vindication of the Public Life and Character of Thomas Jefferson, published in Philadelphia in 1800. The book was written to counter numerous attacks against Jefferson's character, which appeared in newspapers and pamphlets during the bitter election campaign. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division shares custodial responsibility for the collection with the Library's Geography and Map Division, Music Division, Prints and Photographs Division, and the Manuscript Division.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Royal Navy was the largest navy in the world and maintained ascendancy over its rivals through superiority in financing, tactics, training, organization, hygiene, dockyard facilities, logistical support, and warship design and construction. The French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars saw the Royal Navy reach a peak of efficiency, dominating the navies of all adversaries, which spent most of the war blockaded in ports. Between 1815 and 1914, the Navy saw little serious action, owing to the absence of any opponent strong enough to challenge its dominance. Due to British leadership in the Industrial Revolution, unparalleled shipbuilding capacity, and financial resources, British naval warfare underwent a comprehensive transformation, brought by steam propulsion, metal ship construction, and explosive munitions. In 1859, the fleet was estimated to number about 1000 vessels. In 1889, Parliament passed the Naval Defence Act, which formally adopted the 'two-power standard', which stipulated that the Royal Navy should maintain a number of battleships at least equal to the combined strength of the next two largest navies. During the First World War, the British advantage proved insurmountable, leading the German navy to abandon any attempt to challenge British dominance. The Royal Navy had established a blockade of Germany, closed off access to the English Channel, and mined the North Sea. During the Dardanelles Campaign against the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the Royal Navy suffered heavy losses during an attempt to break through the system of minefields and shore batteries defending the straits. The most serious danger to the British Navy and merchant fleet came from the attacks of German U-boats. Unrestricted submarine warfare raised the prospect of Britain being starved into submission in 1917. The introduction of convoys brought the U-boat threat under control. In the inter-war period, the Washington and London Naval Treaties imposed the scrapping of some capital ships and limitations on new construction. The Royal Navy was stripped of much of its power. The re-armament of the Royal Navy restarted in 1932 - with the construction of new battleships and first purpose-built aircraft carriers. At the start of World War II in 1939, the Royal Navy was the largest in the world, with over 1,400 vessels, including 7 aircraft carriers, 15 battleships and battlecruisers. The Royal Navy suffered heavy losses in the first two years of the war with the most critical struggle of the Atlantic defending Britain's vital commercial supply lines against the U-boat attacks. The Navy was vital in guarding the sea lanes that enabled British forces to fight in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Far East. Naval supremacy was essential to amphibious operations such as the invasions of Northwest Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. By the end of the war the Royal Navy comprised over 4,800 ships, and was the second-largest fleet in the world. After the Second World War, the increasingly powerful United States Navy took on the former role of the Royal Navy as a global naval power and police force of the sea. The decline of the British Empire and the economic hardships forced the reduction in the size and capability of the Royal Navy. One of the most important operations conducted by the Royal Navy after the Second World War was the 1982 Falkland Islands War. Despite losing four naval ships, the Royal Navy fought and won a war over 8,000 miles (12,000 km) from Great Britain. The Royal Navy also took part in the Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, the Afghanistan Campaign, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.