The battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571.
The Christians were not greatly outnumbered, having roughly 42,000 men to roughly 47,000 for the Turks. Also the Christians had about 220 ships to about 270 to 300 for the Turks, but the Christian ships were on average larger and more powerful.
The battle was fought to a large extent between Christians armed with arquebuses and Turks armed with compound bows.
Unfortunately, the battle did not did not bring an end Turkish naval power, as they rebuilt their fleet within six months and conquered North Africa and Cyprus after Lepanto, and within a few years were again routinely raiding Sicily and southern Italy.
However, it was a portent of the future and Turkish fleets generally tried to avoid full-tilt combat after Lepanto.
Interestingly, Cervantes fought at Lepanto, was wounded three times, and had his right hand permanently crippled.
OOPSIE
I’m redfaced now.
I posted that from memory. I just looked it up. In 1569 the venetian arsenal exploded. The battle was paid for mostly by spain who got the money from it’s colonies in the americas. Apparently king phillip II had as much to do with it as don juan did.
Ok, how about this then...the battle of Lepanto was the worst defeat ever suffered by the turks at sea. After this battle, the turks’ naval strategy was to avoid direct head to head battle with christian navies unless they had an overwhelming advantage over the christians. And, it was all down hill from there for the turks. Although it took a few centuries for the end to come to pass.
Better?