Fireships scatter the Armada at Calais
1588 · Event
Anchored off Calais to await Parma's army, the Armada sees eight blazing English ships drifting down on it in the dark. Not one Spanish vessel burns — but the fleet cuts its anchors and scatters in panic, losing the tight crescent formation that had carried it safely up the Channel. It never re-forms.
On these timelines: The Spanish Armada, England, Master, United Kingdom (combined), Spain
More from The Spanish Armada
- Spanish Armada (1588)
- Battle of Gravelines (1588)
- Drake singes the King of Spain's beard (1587)
- The Armada sails from Lisbon (1588)
- Elizabeth's Tilbury speech (1588)
- The Armada wrecked on the voyage home (1588)
- The Armada sighted off Cornwall (1588)
- Babington Plot (1586)
Around 1588
- French Wars of Religion (1562)
- Thirty Years' War (1618)
- Eighty Years' War / Dutch Revolt (1568)
- William Shakespeare (1564)
- Edo period (1603)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543)
- Reign of Elizabeth I (1558)
- Battle of Sekigahara (1600)
- Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601)
- Scientific Revolution (1543)