The naval power of Chios during this period is demonstrated by the fact that the Chians had the largest fleet of all the Ionians at the Battle of Lade in 494 BC ( 100 ships ).

According to Herodotus, Themistocles left messages at every place where the Persian fleet might stop for drinking water, asking the Ionians in the Persian fleet to defect, or at least fight badly.

Soon after, the Persian fleet moved to attack the Ionians, who sailed out to meet them.

Although this was unsuccessful at first, when the Persians finally attacked the Ionians, the Samian fleet accepted the Persian offer.

England contributed a young subaltern named Newton and the naval architect Samuel Bentham, brother to the economist, who for his colonel's commission was proving a godsend to the Russian fleet.

Shortly before this battle the Spartan navy, of which he had received the supreme command, was totally defeated off Cnidus by a powerful Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus.

After traveling up the River Stour, the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 ( sources vary on the number ) and a battle ensued.

The victorious fleet was then caught unaware when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river.

The Danish fleet was able to defeat Alfred's fleet which may have been weakened in the previous engagement.

When the Viking raids resumed in 892, Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons, and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries.

Alfred's military reorganisation of Wessex consisted of three elements: the building of thirty fortified and garrisoned towns ( burhs ) along the rivers and Roman roads of Wessex ; the creation of a mobile ( horsed ) field force, consisting of his nobles and their warrior retainers, which was divided into two contingents, one of which was always in the field ; and the enhancement of Wessex's seapower through the addition of larger ships to the existing royal fleet.

His fleet of 25 galleys was met by the Genoese ships sent by Visconti, led by Biagio Assereto.

In exchange for this support, Amyntas granted them rights to Macedonian timber, which was sent back to Athens to help fortify their fleet.

Lord Sydney, as Secretary of State for the Home Office, was the minister in charge of this undertaking, and in September 1786 he appointed Phillip commodore of the fleet which was to transport the convicts and soldiers who were to be the new settlers to Botany Bay.

Phillip had a very difficult time assembling the fleet which was to make the eight-month sea voyage to Australia.

However, the fleet was uncooperative.

The islands were the scene of the Battle of the Aegates Islands of 241 BC, in which the Carthaginian fleet was defeated by C. Lutatius Catulus ; the engagement ended the First Punic War.

During the naval expansion of Aegina during the Archaic Period, Kydonia was an ideal maritime stop for Aegina's fleet on its way to other Mediterranean ports controlled by the emerging sea-power Aegina.

Herodotus had no Athenian victories to record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme effort was necessary.

It was to Aegina rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian ( Herod.

At its mouth was the scene of the decisive battle in 405 by which Lysander destroyed the Athenian fleet, ending the Peloponnesian War.

When the Greek fleet was preparing at Aulis to depart for Troy to begin the Trojan War, Artemis becalmed the winds.

The projected F6D Missileer was intended to fulfill this mission and oppose the attack far from the fleet it was defending.

King Athelstan of Kent and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851, capturing nine ships, and Alfred himself had conducted naval actions in 882.

Absalon's last military exploit came in 1184, off Stralsund at Whitsun, when he soundly defeated a Pomeranian fleet that had attacked Denmark's vassal, Jaromir of Rügen.

The Allied fleet defeated the demoralized remnants of the Persian fleet in the Battle of Mycale — on the same day as Plataea, according to tradition.

After being defeated, Naxos is believed ( based on similar, later revolts ) to have been forced to tear down its walls, and lost its fleet and its vote in the League.

* A battle of annihilation is one in which the defeated party is destroyed in the field, such as the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.

With Brueys dead and his van and centre defeated, the rear division of the French fleet attempted to break out of the bay, but ultimately only two ships of the line and two frigates escaped, from a total of 17 ships engaged.

In the naval front the Ottoman fleet twice exited the Dardanelles and was twice defeated by the Greek Navy, in the battles of Elli and Lemnos.

Owen of Strathclyde was defeated and Symeon states that the army went as far north as Dunnottar and Fortriu, while the fleet is said to have raided Caithness, by which a much larger area, including Sutherland, is probably intended.

Carthage attempted to intervene with a fleet of 350 ships ( according to Polybius ), but was defeated in the Battle of Cape Ecnomus.

Although the Romans defeated the Carthaginian fleet and were successful in rescuing its army in Africa, a storm destroyed nearly the entire Roman fleet on the trip home ; the number of casualties in the disaster may have exceeded 90, 000 men.

The Roman fleet was defeated by the Carthaginians at Drepana, forcing the Romans to continue their attacks from land.

Part of their fleet was wrecked, either because of the Gothic inexperience in sailing through the violent currents of the Propontis or because it was defeated by the Roman navy.

Four days later, on, when the Ottoman fleet again sallied from the straits towards Lemnos, it was defeated for a second time in the Naval Battle of Lemnos.

Admiral de Grasse defeated a British fleet at Chesapeake Bay while Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette joined American forces in defeating the British at Yorktown.

However, a Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at Trafalgar ( 21 October 1805 ) and all plans to invade Britain were then made impossible.

* 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Valcour Island – On Lake Champlain a fleet of American boats is defeated by the Royal Navy, but delays the British advance until 1777.

The Athenian army, attempting to withdraw overland to other, more friendly Sicilian cities, was divided and defeated ; the entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold off into slavery.

Through cunning strategy, Lysander totally defeated the Athenian fleet, in 405 BC, at the battle of Aegospotami, destroying 168 ships and capturing some three or four thousand Athenian sailors.

The decline began on 6 August 1284, when the numerically superior fleet of Pisa, under the command of Albertino Morosini, was defeated by the brilliant tactics of the Genoese fleet, under the command of Benedetto Zaccaria and Oberto Doria, in the dramatic naval Battle of Meloria.

In 1538, the Spanish fleet was defeated by Barbarossa at the Battle of Preveza, securing the eastern Mediterranean for the Turks for 33 years until the defeat at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.