Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson in the context of "Battle of Trafalgar"

The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay; French: Bataille d'Aboukir) was fought between the Royal Navy and the French Navy at Aboukir Bay in Egypt between 1–3 August 1798. It was the climax of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, which had started three months earlier after a large French fleet sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under Napoleon. A British fleet, led by Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, decisively defeated a French fleet under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers, which had escorted Napoleon's army to Egypt.

Napoleon sought to invade Egypt as the first step in a campaign against British India, as part of a greater effort to drive Britain out of the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon's expeditionary force crossed the Mediterranean, it was pursued by a British fleet under Nelson who had been sent from a larger fleet in the Tagus to learn the purpose of the French expedition and to defeat it. He chased the French for more than two months, on several occasions missing them only by a matter of hours. Napoleon was aware of Nelson's pursuit and enforced absolute secrecy about his destination. He was able to capture Malta and then land in Egypt without being intercepted by the British navy.

Trafalgar Square (/trəˈfælɡər/ trə-FAL-gər) is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was established in the early 19th century around the area known as Charing Cross. Its name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain that took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar.

The area around Trafalgar Square has been a significant landmark since the 1200s, as distances from London are measured from Charing Cross. The King's Mews occupied part of the site until the reign of George IV, who moved them to Buckingham Palace, allowing the area to be redeveloped by John Nash. Progress stalled after the death of Nash in 1835, and the square did not open until 1844. It is faced by buildings including the National Gallery, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Canada House and South Africa House. The square also contains several pieces of public sculpture, including the 169-foot (52 m) Nelson's Column in the centre, which commemorates Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory at Trafalgar; an equestrian statue of Charles I; and the fourth plinth, which since 1999 has hosted a variety of artworks.

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (1758–1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy famous for his participation in the Napoleonic Wars, most notably in the Battle of Trafalgar, during which he was killed. He was responsible for several famous victories that helped to secure British control of the seas, both securing Britain from French invasion and frustrating Napoleon's imperial ambitions. After his death during his defeat of the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, there was a public outpouring of grief. Nelson was accorded a state funeral and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

A number of monuments and memorials were constructed across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to honour his memory. The period of British dominance of the seas that his victories were considered to have ushered in led to a continued drive to create monuments in his name across the British Empire. These have taken many forms.

Robert Blake (27 September 1598 – 7 August 1657) was an English naval officer who served as general at sea and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports from 1656 to 1657. Blake served under Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War and Anglo-Spanish War, and as the commanding Admiral of the State's Navy during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Blake is recognised as the "chief founder of England's naval supremacy", a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy well into the early 20th century. Despite this, due to deliberate attempts to expunge the Parliamentarians from historical records following the Stuart Restoration, Blake's achievements tend to remain relatively unrecognised. Blake's successes, however, are considered to have "never been excelled, not even by Nelson" according to one biographer, while Blake is often compared with Nelson by others.

Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Victory:

• English ship Victory (1569), a 42-gun ship, originally named Great Christopher, purchased by the Royal Navy in 1569 and commanded by Sir John Hawkins during 1588 battle against the Spanish Armada and broken up in 1608.
• English ship Victory (1620), a 42-gun great ship launched at Deptford in 1620. She was rebuilt in 1666 as an 82-gun second-rate ship of the line and broken up in 1691.
• HMS Victory (1695), a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line launched in 1675 as Royal James, renamed 7 March 1691. Great repair 1694-1695. Burnt by accident in February 1721.
• HMS Victory (1737), a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line launched in 1737. She was wrecked in 1744 in the Western Approaches to the English Channel, and found again in 2008.
• HMS Victory (1764), an 8-gun schooner launched in 1764. She served in Canada and was burned in 1768.
• HMS Victory, a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line launched in 1765, one of the most famous warships ever launched. She served in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She was Keppel's flagship at Ushant, Jervis's flagship at Cape St Vincent and Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar. She served as a harbour ship after 1824 and was moved to a dry dock at Portsmouth in 1922, where she has been the flagship of the Second Sea Lord (until 2012) and the First Sea Lord (presently), and is preserved as a museum ship.

• HMS Victory IV – the designation for the Royal Naval Division during the First World War.

Hoste Island (Spanish: Isla Hoste) is one of the southernmost islands in Chile, lying south, across the Beagle Channel, from Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and west of Navarino Island, from which it is separated by the Murray Channel. It is named after William Hoste, one of Lord Nelson's protégés.

Captain Maurice Suckling (4 May 1726 – 14 July 1778) was a Royal Navy officer and politician best known for starting the naval career of his nephew Horatio Nelson and for serving as Comptroller of the Navy from 1775 until his death. Suckling joined the Royal Navy in 1739 and saw service in the English Channel and Mediterranean Sea during the War of the Austrian Succession. With the support of relatives including Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, Suckling was promoted quickly and received his first command in 1754. At the start of the Seven Years' War in 1756 he was promoted to captain and given a command on the Jamaica Station. There he played a major part in the Battle of Cap-Français in 1757 and fought an inconclusive skirmish against the French ship Palmier in 1758 before returning to Britain in 1760.

Suckling was employed in the aftermath of the capture of Belle Île in 1761 destroying French fortifications on the Île-d'Aix and went on half pay at the end of the war in 1763. He was given his next command during the Falklands Crisis of 1770, and took his nephew Nelson with him. Despite having misgivings over Nelson's suitability for the navy, Suckling supported him and saw him translated into several more active ships in order to further his naval education when Suckling himself moved to command a guard ship. Suckling left his ship in 1773 and was initially rebuffed in his attempts to gain fresh employment with the navy because of the ongoing peace, but in 1775 First Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, appointed him Comptroller of the Navy.

The Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was an amphibious assault by the Royal Navy on the Spanish port city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Launched by Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson on 22 July 1797, the assault was defeated, and on 25 July the remains of the landing party withdrew under a truce, having lost several hundred men. Nelson himself had been wounded in the arm, which was subsequently partially amputated: a stigma that he carried to his grave as a constant reminder of his failure.