Queen Elizabeth's Defeat Of The Spanish Armada

During Elizabeth the First rule there was a high amount of exploration. Sir Walter Raleigh settled Roanoke Island in 1584. She also approved of the colonization of America with Jamestown and having Virginia named after her title “the Virgin Queen”. It was settled 4 years after she died in 1607. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577 under Elizabeth the First rule being one of the first to do so. he set out with five ships to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World. He abandoned two ships in the Río de la Plata in South America, and, with the remaining three, navigated the Straits of Magellan, the first Englishman to make the passage. A storm drove them far southward; one ship and its crew were destroyed, and

Spain had been the greatest power in the 1500s in Europe.The defeat of the Spanish Armada is one of the most famous events in English history. It was one of Queen Elizabeth's greatest accomplishments.

On July 21, the English navy began shooting long-range heavy guns at a seven-mile-long line of Spanish ships. The Spanish Armada continued to advance during the next few days, but England’s assault had diminished Spain’s navy. On July 27, the Armada anchored in Calais, France. But it was not a safe area. and the Spanish army prepared to embark from Flanders. Without control of the Channel, however, their passage to England would be impossible. Just after midnight on July 29, the English sent eight burning ships into the crowded harbor at Calais. The panicked Spanish ships were forced to cut their anchors and sail out to sea to avoid catching fire. The disorganized fleet, completely out of formation, was attacked by the English off Gravelines at dawn. In a decisive battle, the superior English guns won the day, and the devastated Armada was forced to retreat north to Scotland. The English navy pursued the Spanish as far as Scotland and then turned back for want of supplies.Battered by storms and suffering from a dire lack of supplies, the Armada sailed on a hard journey back to Spain around Scotland and Ireland. Some of the damaged ships foundered in the sea while others were driven onto the coast of Ireland and wrecked. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the original Armada was lost and some 15,000 men had