Royal Navy in the context of Tea dance

Gibraltar (/dʒɪˈbrɔːltər/ jih-BRAWL-tər, Spanish: [xiβɾalˈtaɾ]) is a British Overseas Territory and city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean (Strait of Gibraltar). It has an area of 6.8 km (2.6 sq mi) and is bordered to the north by Spain (Campo de Gibraltar). The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar, at the foot of which is a densely populated town area. Gibraltar is home to around 34,000 people, primarily Gibraltarians.

Gibraltar was founded as a permanent watchtower by the Almohads in 1160. It switched control between the Nasrids, Castilians and Marinids in the Late Middle Ages, acquiring larger strategic clout upon the destruction of nearby Algeciras c. 1375. It became again part of the Crown of Castile in 1462. In 1704, Anglo-Dutch forces captured Gibraltar from Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession, and it was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It became an important base for the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars and World War II, as it controlled the narrow entrance and exit to the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, with half the world's seaborne trade passing through it.

Air warfare was a major component in all theaters of World War II and, together with anti-aircraft warfare, consumed a large fraction of the industrial output of the major powers. Germany and Japan depended on air forces that were closely integrated with land and naval forces; the Axis powers downplayed the advantage of fleets of strategic bombers and were late in appreciating the need to defend against Allied strategic bombing. By contrast, Britain and the United States took an approach that greatly emphasized strategic bombing and (to a lesser degree) tactical control of the battlefield by air as well as adequate air defenses. Both Britain and the U.S. built substantially larger strategic forces of large, long-range bombers. Simultaneously, they built tactical air forces that could win air superiority over the battlefields, thereby giving vital assistance to ground troops. The U.S. Navy and Royal Navy also built a powerful naval-air component based on aircraft carriers, as did the Imperial Japanese Navy; these played the central role in the war at sea.

The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England, lit. 'air battle for England') was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. It takes its name from the speech given by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on 18 June, 1940: "What General Weygand called the 'Battle of France' is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

The Germans had rapidly overwhelmed France and the Low Countries in the Battle of France, leaving Britain to face the threat of invasion by sea. The German high command recognised the difficulties of a seaborne attack while the Royal Navy controlled the English Channel and the North Sea. The primary objective of the German forces was to compel Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement.

The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counterblockade. The campaign peaked from mid-1940 to the end of 1943.

The Battle of the Atlantic pitted U-boats and other warships of the German Kriegsmarine (navy) and aircraft of the Luftwaffe (air force) against the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, United States Navy, and Allied merchant shipping. Convoys, coming mainly from North America and predominantly going to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, were protected for the most part by the British and Canadian navies and air forces. These forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States beginning on 13 September 1941. The Germans were joined by submarines of the Italian Regia Marina (royal navy) after Germany's Axis ally Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940.

Command of the sea (also called control of the sea or sea control) is a naval military concept regarding the strength of a particular navy to a specific naval area it controls. A navy has command of the sea when it is so strong that its rivals cannot attack it directly. This dominance may apply to its surrounding waters (i.e., the littoral) or may extend far into the oceans, meaning the country has a blue-water navy. It is the naval equivalent of air supremacy.

With command of the sea, a country (or alliance) can ensure that its own military and merchant ships can move around at will, while its rivals are forced either to stay in port or to try to evade it. It also enables free use of amphibious operations that can expand ground-based strategic options. The British Royal Navy held command of the sea for most of the period between the 18th to the early 20th centuries, allowing Britain and its allies to trade and to move troops and supplies easily in wartime, while its enemies could not. In the post-World War II period, the United States Navy has had command of the sea.

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and the naval warfare force of the United States. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, one undergoing trials, two new carriers under construction, and six other carriers planned as of 2024. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the U.S. Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 299 deployable combat vessels and about 4,012 operational aircraft as of 18 July 2023. The U.S. Navy is a part of the United States Department of Defense and is one of six armed forces of the United States and one of eight uniformed services of the United States.

The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. After suffering significant loss of goods and personnel at the hands of the Barbary pirates from Algiers, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 for the construction of six heavy frigates, the first ships of the Navy. The United States Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers. It played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The United States Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world, succeeding the British Navy. The modern United States Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. It is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and rapidly respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in American foreign and military policy.

William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded his elder brother George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of the United Kingdom's House of Hanover.

William served in the Royal Navy in his youth, spending time in British North America and the Caribbean, and was later nicknamed the "Sailor King". In 1789, he was created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. Between 1791 and 1811, he cohabited with the actress Dorothea Jordan, with whom he had ten children. In 1818, he married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. In 1827, he was appointed Britain's Lord High Admiral, the first since 1709.

Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.

Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He first saw combat during the Seven Years' War, when he fought in the Siege of Louisbourg. Later in the war he surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Siege of Quebec. In the 1760s he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a pivotal moment in British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of his three voyages.

The Abū Qīr Bay (sometimes transliterated Abukir Bay or Aboukir Bay) (Arabic: خليج أبو قير; transliterated: Khalīj Abū Qīr) is a spacious bay on the Mediterranean Sea near Alexandria in Egypt, lying between the Rosetta mouth of the Nile and the town of Abu Qir. The ancient cities of Canopus, Heracleion and Menouthis lie submerged beneath the waters of the bay. In 1798 it was the site of the Battle of the Nile, a naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the navy of the French First Republic. The bay contains a natural gas field, discovered in the 1970s.

The German Empire (German: Deutsches Reich), also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, or simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when Germany changed its form of government to a republic. The German Empire consisted of 25 states, each with its own nobility: four constituent kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies (six before 1876), seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. While Prussia was only one of the four kingdoms in the realm, it contained about two-thirds of the Empire's population and territory, and Prussian dominance was also constitutionally established, since the King of Prussia was also the German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser).

The empire was founded on 18 January 1871, when the south German states, except for Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, joined the North German Confederation. The new constitution came into force on 16 April, changing the name of the federal state to the German Empire and introducing the title of German Emperor for Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from the House of Hohenzollern. Berlin remained its capital, and Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia, became chancellor, the head of government. After 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized. In 1871, Germany had a population of 41 million people; by 1913, this had increased to 68 million. A heavily rural collection of states in 1815, the now united Germany became predominantly urban. German factories were often larger and more modern than many of their British and French counterparts, but the preindustrial sector was more backward. The success of the German Empire in the natural sciences was such that one-third of all Nobel Prizes went to German inventors and researchers. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire became an industrial, technological, and scientific power in Europe, and by 1913, Germany was the largest economy in continental Europe and the third largest in the world. Germany also became a great power, building the longest railway network of Europe, the world's strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. Starting very small in 1871, in a decade, the navy became second only to Britain's Royal Navy.

The Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) is the maritime service branch of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) responsible for defending the country against any seaborne threats and as a guarantor of its sea lines of communications. The RSN traces its origins to the Royal Navy when Singapore was still a crown colony of the British Empire. The service was formally established in 1967, two years after its independence from Malaysia in 1965, and had undergone a substantial modernisation ever since – which has led them into becoming the most powerful navy in Southeast Asia.

The RSN also regularly conducts operations with the navies of its neighbouring countries to combat piracy and terrorist threats in the congested littoral waters of the Strait of Malacca and Singapore. It also jointly operates the Fokker 50 maritime patrol aircraft with its counterparts from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) to provide air surveillance of the seaward approaches to Singapore, which is one of the busiest sealanes in the world. The RSN has engaged in international anti-piracy operations further abroad, partaking in the multinational Combined Task Force 151 off the Gulf of Aden.

Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.

Charles was born during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and became heir apparent when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, acceded to the throne in 1952. He was created Prince of Wales in 1958 and his investiture was held in 1969. Charles was educated at Cheam School and Gordonstoun, and later spent six months at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After completing a history degree from the University of Cambridge, he served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and they had two sons, William and Harry. Charles and Diana divorced in 1996 after years of estrangement and well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died the following year from injuries sustained in a car crash. In 2005, Charles married his long-time partner, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included raiding ashore (often in support of naval objectives) and the boarding of vessels during ship-to-ship combat or capture of prize ships. Marines also assisted in maintaining security, discipline, and order aboard ships (reflecting the historically pressed-nature of the rest of the ship's company and the risk of mutiny). While maintaining many of their historical roles, in modern times, marines also engage in duties including rapid-response operations, humanitarian aid, disaster relief, special operations roles, and counter-terrorism operations. In most nations, marines are an integral part of that state's navy, such as the United Kingdom's Royal Marines or Russia's Naval Infantry; in some countries their marine forces can instead be part of the land army, such as the French Troupes de marine, or, more uncommonly, a nation’s marine forces may be an independent military branch such as the United States Marine Corps or the Ukrainian Marine Corps.

The exact term "marine" is not found in many languages other than English. In French-speaking countries, two terms which could be translated as "marine", but do not translate exactly: troupes de marine (marine troops) and fusiliers-marins (marine riflemen) and fuzileiros navais in Portuguese (lit. 'Naval fusiliers'). The word marine means "navy" in many European languages such as Dutch, French, German, Italian and Norwegian. “Naval infantry” may also refer to sailors forming both temporary and permanent infantry units, such as the British WWI-era 63rd (Royal Naval) Division (an infantry division made-up of Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines on a semi-permanent basis) or the Imperial Japanese Naval Landing Forces (ad-hoc formations of Imperial Japanese Navy sailors temporarily pressed into service as infantry).

The image of Britannia (/brɪˈtæniə/) is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin Britannia was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great Britain, and the Roman province of Britain during the Roman Empire. The Roman Britannia was typically depicted reclining or seated, with not a trident but a spear and shield, appearing on Roman coins of the 2nd century AD. The classical allegory was revived in the early modern period. On coins of the pound sterling issued by Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Britannia appears with her shield bearing the Union Flag. To symbolise the Royal Navy's victories, Britannia's spear became the trident in 1797, and a helmet was added to the coinage in 1825.

By the 1st century BC, Britannia had replaced Albion as the prevalent Latin name for the island of Great Britain. After the Roman conquest in 43 AD, Britannia came to refer to the Roman province that encompassed the southern two-thirds of the island (see Roman Britain). The remaining third of the island, known to the Romans as Caledonia, lay north of the River Forth in modern Scotland. It was intermittently but not permanently occupied by the Roman army. The name is a Latinisation of the native Brittonic word for Great Britain, Pretanī, which also produced the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai.

The capture of Gibraltar by Anglo-Dutch forces of the Grand Alliance occurred between 1 and 4 August 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Since the beginning of the war the Alliance had been looking for a harbour in the Iberian Peninsula to control the Strait of Gibraltar and facilitate naval operations against the French fleet in the western Mediterranean Sea. An attempt to seize Cádiz had ended in failure in September 1702, but following the Alliance fleet's successful raid in Vigo Bay in October that year, the combined fleets of the "Maritime Powers", the Netherlands and England, had emerged as the dominant naval force in the region. This strength helped persuade King Peter II of Portugal to sever his alliance with France and Bourbon-controlled Spain, and ally himself with the Grand Alliance in 1703 as the Alliance fleets could campaign in the Mediterranean using access to the port of Lisbon and conduct operations in support of the Austrian Habsburg candidate to the Spanish throne, the Archduke Charles, known to his supporters as Charles III of Spain.

Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt represented the Habsburg cause in the region. In May 1704 the prince and admiral George Rooke, commander of the main Grand Alliance fleet, failed to take Barcelona in the name of "Charles III"; Rooke subsequently evaded pressure from his allies to make another attempt on Cádiz. In order to compensate for their lack of success the Alliance commanders resolved to capture Gibraltar, a small town on the southern Spanish coast. Following a heavy bombardment the town was invaded by English and Dutch marines and sailors. The governor, Diego de Salinas, agreed to surrender Gibraltar and its small garrison on 4 August. Three days later Prince George entered the town with Austrian and Spanish Habsburg troops in the name of Charles III of Spain. The Grand Alliance failed in its objective of replacing Philip V with Charles III as King of Spain, but in the peace negotiations Gibraltar was ceded to Britain.

English Harbour (/ɪŋ.ɡlɪʃ hɑːbə/; North Antiguan: Inglish Aaba [ɪŋglɪʃ ɑːbə]) is a natural harbour and settlement on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, in the extreme south of the island. The settlement takes its name from the nearby harbour in which the Royal Navy established its base of operations for the area during the eighteenth century. Its population is 759 (2001 Census).

English Harbour is a centre of boating, especially yachting. There are two sheltered deepwater harbours nearby; English Harbour itself and Falmouth Harbour.

Confiance, launched in 1797, was a privateer corvette from Bordeaux, famous for being Robert Surcouf's ship during the capture of the British East India Company's East Indiaman Kent. Confiance had captured a number of ships through the years before the British Royal Navy captured her in 1805, taking her into service under her existing name. The Royal Navy sold her in 1810, by which time she had taken part in two notable actions in British service. Confiance then sailed as a merchantman, until 1816.

Ambroise Louis Garneray (19 February 1783 – 11 September 1857) was a French corsair, painter and writer. He served under Robert Surcouf and Jean-Marie Dutertre, and was held as prisoner-of-war aboard Royal Navy prison hulks for eight years before being captured and repatriated at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, continuing his career as a painter until his death in 1857.

Several waves of European seafarers sailed the edges of Australia. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.

The most famous expedition was that of Royal Navy Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook, 164 years after Janszoon's sighting. After an assignment to make observations of the 1769 Transit of Venus, Cook followed Admiralty instructions to explore the south Pacific for the reported Terra Australis and on 19 April 1770 sighted the south-eastern coast of Australia and became the first recorded European to explore the eastern coastline. Explorers by land and sea continued to survey the continent for some years after settlement.