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According to a Live Science report, archaeologists from the Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation believe they have identified the wreck of a treasure-laden eighteenth-century Portuguese ship that was famously attacked by pirates off the coast of Madagascar. In 1721, the Nossa Senhora do Cabo departed India en route to Portugal with a cargo of gold, silver, and precious gems. It was also transporting the outgoing Portuguese viceroy and the Archbishop of Goa when it was captured by a group of pirates that included Olivier Levasseur (La Buse) and John Taylor. Divers located the ship's remains on the seafloor near the...

After participating with Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru in 1535, Orellana moved to Guayaquil and was named governor of that area in 1538. When Pizarro's half brother, Gonzalo, prepared an expedition to explore the regions east of Quito, Orellana was appointed his lieutenant. In April 1541 he was sent ahead of the main party to seek provisions, taking a brigantine with 50 soldiers. He reached the junction of the Napo and Marañón rivers, where his group persuaded him of the impossibility of returning to Pizarro. Instead, he entered upon an exploration of the Amazon system. Drifting with the...

Known by the scientific name Vanilla tahitensis, Tahitian vanilla is found to exist only in cultivation; natural, wild populations of the orchid have never been encountered... "All the evidence points in the same direction," Lubinsky said. "Our DNA analysis corroborates what the historical sources say, namely, that vanilla was a trade item brought to Tahiti by French sailors in the mid-19th century. The French Admiral responsible for introducing vanilla to Tahiti, Alphonse Hamelin, used vanilla cuttings from the Philippines. The historical record tells us that vanilla – which isn't native to the Philippines – was previously introduced to the region...

NEW YORK — Workers digging at Manhattan's World Trade Center site 15 years ago made an improbable discovery: sodden timbers from a boat built during the Revolutionary War that had been buried more than two centuries earlier. Now, over 600 pieces from the 50-foot (15-meter) vessel are being painstakingly put back together at the New York State Museum. After years on the water and centuries underground, the boat is becoming a museum exhibit. Arrayed like giant puzzle pieces on the museum floor, research assistants and volunteers recently spent weeks cleaning the timbers with picks and brushes before reconstruction could even...

During recent exercises by the French navy aimed at monitoring the country's underwater resources, a crew detected an abnormally large feature on the seafloor near Saint-Tropez. "The sonar detected something quite big, so we went back with the device's camera, then again with an underwater robot to snap high-quality images," said Arnaud Schaumasse, head of the French Ministry of Culture's underwater archaeology department. The AFP reports that an investigative marine team subsequently located the site of a well-preserved shipwreck, dubbed "Camarat 4," lying 1.5 miles beneath the surface -- the deepest wreck ever recorded in French waters. Researchers believe the...

How did the Vikings rise from isolated Scandinavians to dominate the seas across Europe and beyond? Historian Dan Snow investigates the cutting edge shipbuilding technology that powered the Vikings' legendary longships and how their mastery of oak and ocean reshaped history. This clip is from The Vikings Uncovered (2016) The 'Cutting Edge' Viking Technology That Changed History | 5:34 BBC Timestamp | 835K subscribers | 27,385 views | May 29, 2025

Australian National Maritime Museum announced that a team of archaeological divers believe they have located the wreck of Koning Willem de Tweede. The 800-ton Dutch merchant sailing vessel was lost in Guichen Bay off South Australia in 1857. The team used marine magnetometry and underwater metal detectors in an area where the ship reportedly went down and were able to identify the ruins of a large ship measuring 460 feet long by 140 feet wide, which match the Dutch vessel's documented dimensions. Components from what appears to be the ship's windlass were also seen protruding from the seafloor and fragments...

Mexican sailors were seen dangling from a navy training vessel's main mast moments after the ship smashed into the Brooklyn Bridge. The sailors had been standing atop the Cuauhtémoc's 150-foot masts in the lead up to the ship striking the iconic structure on Saturday as part of a traditional greeting. The massive Navy vessel, reportedly carrying nearly 300 passengers, hit the iconic New York City bridge, triggering a colossal rescue response and leaving two dead and dozens more severely injured. In multiple eyewitness videos, the towering masts are seen snapping and partially collapsing as they crash into the bridge's deck....

In a discovery that pushes back the timeline of domestic cats in North America, archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known feline remains in the modern-day United States.The find comes from the Emanuel Point II shipwreck, one of the vessels in the doomed 1559 expedition led by Spanish conquistador Tristán de Luna y Arellano. Published in American Antiquity on April 14, the study sheds light not only on the fate of these cats but also on their role in early colonial ventures...In September 1559, a powerful hurricane devastated the Spanish fleet anchored off the nascent settlement of Santa María de Ochuse.Several...

A man who died five centuries ago has emerged as a symbol of something he never could have imagined. Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social, President Donald Trump announced his plan to restore the late-15th-century Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus to his once-lofty perch among the venerated heroes of Western and American history. The announcement served as a welcome sign that the president has not forgotten his promised National Garden of American Heroes. On Jan. 18, 2021, only two days before the end of his first presidential term, Trump issued Executive Order 13978. In Section 3, the president identified...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: President Trump announces he is REINSTATING Columbus Day: “I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes.” 12:50 PM · Apr 27, 2025

The National Museum of Denmark has confirmed that two 18th-century shipwrecks in Cahuita National Park, long thought to be pirate ships, are the Danish slave ships Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, which sank in 1710. The identification was announced on Sunday, resolving decades of speculation about the wrecks off Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The ships were identified through underwater excavations in 2023, which analyzed ship timbers, cargo blocks, clay pipes, and other artifacts. In 2015, U.S. archaeologists from East Carolina University discovered yellow bricks, specific to Danish manufacturing in Flensburg, among the wreckage, prompting renewed investigation. The wrecks, located on...

Spain led the Holy League to defeat the Ottoman Turkish Navy at the Battle of Lepanto near Corinth, Greece, in 1571. Hilaire Belloc wrote in The Great Heresies (1938): "This violent Mohammedan pressure on Christendom from the East made a bid for success by sea as well as by land. ... The last great Turkish organization working now from the conquered capital of Constantinople, proposed to cross the Adriatic, to attack Italy by sea and ultimately to recover all that had been lost in the Western Mediterranean. ... There was one critical moment when it looked as though the scheme...

At Fort Kochi’s St. Francis Church, history appears to have been buried, forgotten, and dead. “Remembering Vasco da Gama, Portuguese navigator; he arrived in Cochin…where he died and was first buried” is written on a plain blue board at the chapel. The man who found the sea route to India in 1498, revolutionising international trade and cross-cultural contact, passed away on December 24, 1524. In the actual location of his death, amnesia reigns as programmes for the 500th anniversary are underway at Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon, where his ashes were repatriated from Kochi in 1539. Not even a candle is...

The Zuytdorp shipwreck was likely caused by a storm, not navigational errors, according to new research. Flinders University archaeologists analyzed historical and environmental data, showing the crew had sufficient skills to navigate but were overcome by severe weather...The study, published in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology by Flinders University archaeologists Dr. Ruud Stelten and Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde, examined ship logs, historical maps, navigational practices, and weather patterns of the era to uncover the causes of the wreck.The Zuytdorp is one of four Dutch shipwrecks discovered off the Western Australian coast in the past century, with the Batavia and the...

It's finally done. Over 3 days of hand-plotting 173 years' worth of data. The end result is unbelievable. What an incredible dataset to look at.

The recently discovered shipwreck may have set sail as part of da Gama's final Indian Ocean voyage—a journey which he made a total of four times before his death 500 years ago. Researchers believe it may have been one of around 20 ships part of this excursion: the São Jorge, which was captained by Fernando de Monroy and sank in 1524, making it one of the earliest European shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean. Eight similar Portuguese shipwrecks of similar age have previously been discovered in the area.The discovery of the Portuguese shipwreck was made in Malindi, Kenya, in 2013 by...

Columbus’ lineage unveiled through DNA analysis The centuries-old mystery of Christopher Columbus’ lineage has been solved. Scientists revealed the explorer’s roots after DNA analysis in a documentary aired on Saturday, October 10th on Spanish television. Researchers, led by forensic pathologist Miguel Llorente, examined microscopic samples of remains buried in Seville Cathedral. They compared them to those of his known relatives and descendants. The DNA study confirmed that the remains of Christopher Columbus are indeed buried in Seville. Llorente, briefing reporters on the findings, confirmed this. He specifically stated: “Today it became possible to verify with new technologies, definitively confirming the...

Scientists have solved the 500-year-old mystery surrounding Christopher Columbus' final resting place.The team spent 20 years performing a DNA analysis on human bones found buried in Spain's Seville Cathedral, confirming with 'absolute certainty' they belonged to the explorer who died in 1506.For the past two decades, they have been comparing DNA taken from the samples with that of relatives and descendants.The findings come just ahead of the U.S. holiday in his name, this Monday, timed to the second Monday in October each year to commemorate the Italian voyager's Oct. 12, 1492 discovery of the 'New World' for Spain...Columbus' body had...

Was Christopher Columbus born in Genoa, Italy? Most definitely not, say an unlikely collection of experts from European royalty, DNA science, university scholars, even Columbus's own living family. This ground breaking documentary follows a trail of proof to show he might have been much more than we know.Who Was The Real Christopher Columbus? | Secrets and Lies of Christopher Columbus | Timeline