title: Neal McDonough

text: McDonough was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on February 13, 1966, the son of Catherine ("née" Bushe) and Frank McDonough, motel owners who emigrated from Ireland, with his mother coming from County Tipperary and his father from County Galway. McDonough grew up in Barnstable, Massachusetts and was raised Catholic. His childhood nickname was "Headster", which McDonough says originated in his brothers' teasing him about the size of his head. He graduated from Barnstable High School, and attended Syracuse University, where he was initiated and became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988. He had obtained several college scholarships to play baseball, but decided to go to Syracuse, as he thought it had the best theater department. McDonough furthered his classical theatre training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.


title: Neal McDonough

text: In 1991, McDonough won the Best Actor Dramalogue for "Away Alone". McDonough has made many television and film appearances since then, including "Band of Brothers", "Boomtown", "", "Minority Report" and "The Hitcher". McDonough played Dave Williams on the fifth season of "Desperate Housewives". He also starred in the lead role on 2004 medical drama "Medical Investigation" for its one full season.


title: Neal McDonough

text: In 1996, McDonough voiced Bruce Banner in the animated television series"The Incredible Hulk" which ran for two seasons. McDonough reprised his role in the 2005 video game, "".


title: Neal McDonough

text: McDonough was set to star in the ABC dramedy "Scoundrels", but was fired for refusing to act in sex scenes, citing his family and Catholic faith as basis for his decision.


title: Neal McDonough

text: McDonough portrays Jesus in "The Truth & Life Dramatized Audio New Testament Bible," a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatized audio New Testament which uses the Catholic edition of the revised standard version of the Bible.


title: Neal McDonough

text: In 2011, McDonough appeared as Dum Dum Dugan in "". McDonough also voiced the character in the 2011 movie tie-in video game, "". He reprised his role four times since then: in the 2013 short film, ""; in the first episode of the second season of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (2014); in an episode of the "Agent Carter" television series (2015); and as an alternate version in an episode of the "What If...?" television series (2021).


title: Neal McDonough

text: In 2012, McDonough had a recurring role in the third season of FX's "Justified" as Robert Quarles, a sadistic carpetbagging mobster from Detroit. He was later cast as Police Chief Parker in Frank Darabont's TNT pilot "Mob City".


title: Neal McDonough

text: During the 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony on NBC, McDonough was featured in a high-profile and frequently aired "Poolside" commercial for the Cadillac ELR hybrid electric car.


title: Neal McDonough

text: In 2021, he was cast as President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the tenth season of "American Horror Story", titled "". He is a main cast member for the second part of the season. The same year, he also portrayed the character Dr. William Birkin, the lead villain of the popular video game "Resident Evil 2", in a live-action film adaptation of the first two Resident Evil games, entitled "".


title: Neal McDonough

text: Throughout his career McDonough has enjoyed recognition for his various character roles in both film and television, as well as for his voice work in animation and video games. As a result of these accolades, he is especially considered one of the best "bad guy character actors" in the industry today


title: Neal McDonough

text: McDonough is a devout Catholic. In 2003, McDonough married Ruvé Robertson, a South African model whom McDonough met in the United Kingdom while filming "Band of Brothers". The couple have five children, Morgan "Little Buck" Patrick (born November 28, 2005), Catherine Maggie (born May 14, 2007), London Jane (born January 11, 2010), Clover Elizabeth (born August 15, 2011), and James Hamilton (born March 31, 2014). He has stated that he refuses to perform sex or kissing scenes because of his faith and respect for his wife. He said he was fired from the TV series "Scoundrels" for his refusal to perform sex scenes. McDonough and his family resided in the seaside community of Tsawwassen, British Columbia, but have since relocated back to Los Angeles.


title: Baywatch

text: Baywatch is an American action drama television series about lifeguards who patrol the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, and Hawaii, starring David Hasselhoff. It was created by Michael Berk, Douglas Schwartz, and Gregory J. Bonann, who produced the show throughout its 11-season run. The series focuses on both professional and personal challenges faced by the characters, portrayed by a large rotating ensemble cast that notably includes Pamela Anderson, Alexandra Paul, Gregory Alan Williams, Jeremy Jackson, Parker Stevenson, David Chokachi, Billy Warlock, Erika Eleniak, David Charvet, Yasmine Bleeth, and Nicole Eggert.


title: Baywatch

text: The show was cancelled after its first season on NBC, but survived through syndication and later became the most-watched television series in the world, with a weekly audience of over 1.1 billion viewers despite consistently negative critical reviews, earning it a reputation as a pop cultural phenomenon and frequent source of allusion and parody. The show ran in its original title and format from 1989 to 1999. From 1999 to 2001, with a setting change and large cast overhaul, it was known as "Baywatch: Hawaii".


title: Baywatch

text: It spawned a spin-off series, "Baywatch Nights", which aired for two seasons from 1995 to 1997, and a 2017 feature film adaptation.


title: Baywatch

text: "Baywatch" revolves around the work of a team of lifeguards and their interpersonal relationships, with plots usually centering on dangers related to the beach and other activities pertinent to the California (later Hawaii) beach lifestyle. Topics from earthquakes and shark attacks to serial killers serve as plot conflicts on the show. Saving people from drowning is one of the most typical situations used in the shows.


title: Baywatch

text: "Baywatch" is noted for its large ensemble cast with various members "rotating" in-and-out of the show, similar to many long-running soap operas. By the end of the 11 season run, not a single member of the original cast was still in the cast. David Hasselhoff appeared in the most episodes (totalling 206 including the pilot), followed by Jeremy Jackson (117), Michael Newman (109), and Pamela Anderson (77).


title: Baywatch

text: Following the "Hawaii" retool, many of the series longtime cast members left the show. The only remaining cast members were David Hasselhoff, Brooke Burns, Michael Bergin, and Michael Newman. Following the 10th season, Hasselhoff and Newman both left the series, leaving Bergin and Burns the only remnants of the show's original "L.A. era".


title: Baywatch

text: "Baywatch" debuted on NBC in 1989, but was cancelled after only one season, when it placed 73rd out of 103 shows in the seasonal ratings, and also because the production studio, GTG, (a joint venture of television station owner Gannett Company, later spun off into Tegna, and Grant Tinker, which was established only to produce the newsmagazine based on Gannett's newspaper "USA Today") went out of business. Due to high production costs, GTG was unable to finance the series any further.


title: Baywatch

text: Feeling the series still had potential, David Hasselhoff, one of the principal actors, along with creators and executive producers Michael Berk, Douglas Schwartz, and Gregory J. Bonann, revived it for the first-run syndication market in 1991. Hasselhoff was given the title of executive producer for his work on bringing the show back. The series was hugely successful, especially internationally.


title: Baywatch

text: The show led to a spin-off, "Baywatch Nights", and three direct-to-video films: "", "Baywatch: White Thunder at Glacier Bay", and "".


title: Baywatch

text: The audience was 65 percent female, with its number one audience being women aged 18 to 34. Speaking in 2001, Schwartz explained that, after doing focus groups on "Baywatch" for about five years, they learned that the show appealed to this demographic because "most of [its] lead characters were strong, independent women who were heroic, who were saving lives, who were equal to men".


title: Baywatch

text: Will Rogers State Beach served as the predominant beach location for "Baywatch," although some scenes were filmed at Long Beach, California, and in Malibu, California.


title: Baywatch

text: The original NBC theme was "Save Me", performed by Peter Cetera, with Bonnie Raitt on guitar and Richard Sterban, bass singer for The Oak Ridge Boys, as one of the background vocalists. The song is from Cetera's 1988 album "One More Story". David Hasselhoff also recorded a duet with Laura Branigan which was hugely successful for being broadcast as the closing track of the "Baywatch" TV series. The single "I Believe" was originally released on CD album in 1994.


title: Baywatch

text: In 1999, with production costs rising in Los Angeles, and the syndication market shrinking, the producers sought to move the production elsewhere. They filmed a pilot and announced plans to title the show "Baywatch: Down Under". However, strong local opposition from residents of Avalon Beach, New South Wales eventually led to Pittwater Council, the local government area of which Avalon was part of, to permanently ban future production. As an alternative to Australia, Hawaii offered the producers large financial incentives to move the show to the islands, instead, and in season 10, "Baywatch: Hawaii" was launched.


title: Baywatch

text: "Baywatch" filmed for two seasons in Hawaii, from 1999 until 2001. April Masini, a newspaper advice columnist, pitched the move to executive producer Gregory J. Bonann. The agreement mandated that addition of the subtitle, to "Baywatch: Hawaii", as well as the hiring local production crew, filming on-location for at least two years, and producing 44 episodes, each at a cost of about US$870,000 (climbing up to $1.1 million), 60% of which was to be spent in Hawaii. The series was cancelled due to poor ratings.


title: Baywatch

text: First Look Studios released the first three seasons on DVD in 2006/2007. Although the box sets are labeled "Season 1", "Season 2", etc., the sets actually feature episodes of the "following" season (i.e., the "Season 1" box set contains the episodes of the literal "second" season (1991–1992) of the show). The second and third sets were released on October 31, 2006. Each set features a disc with season 1 (NBC) episodes on it. These releases also do not contain any of the original music as it appeared when the episodes aired. They have been removed due to copyright agreements. However, these releases have been discontinued and are now out of print.


title: Baywatch

text: In August 2018, "Deadline Hollywood" reported that Fremantle was remastering the series. The series was released on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu in HD and Pluto TV in 2019. Due to expired licenses for much of the show's musical soundtrack, many of the show's episodes are either cut to remove songs, or re-scored and re-edited with new "soundalike" tracks. Visual Entertainment Incorporated released seasons 1–9 on DVD for the first time in the United States on May 3, 2021, with a Blu-ray release on May 21.


title: Baywatch

text: The show is the subject of a running gag on "Friends", where Chandler and Joey would watch "Baywatch" together religiously, including over the phone when Joey was living in another apartment. Among other related jokes, Chandler names their pet chicken after Yasmine Bleeth (although the bird later turns out to be male) due to a long-standing crush on the actress. This was largely a joke about Chandler's actor, Matthew Perry, who briefly dated Bleeth in 1995.


title: Baywatch

text: Many of the actors from the series have become closely associated with their roles in the series. David Hasselhoff has often referenced or satirized his role as Mitch Buchannon, notably in "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie;" in which he appears in lifeguard attire similar to Mitch, runs across a beach in slow-motion, and displays superhuman swimming abilities similar to Mitch's own feats of athleticism.


title: Baywatch

text: "Babewatch" is a satirical term sometimes used in connection with the series, which has been used by the humor magazine "Mad" and by television commentators. The term was also used for a series of pornographic films released between 1994 and 1999 in list of feature film series with 11 to 20 entries.


title: Baywatch

text: "Baywatch" is prominently featured in the 2006 mockumentary film "Borat" in which the character Borat Sagdiyev (played by Sacha Baron Cohen), a Kazakh journalist with a misconstrued understanding of American customs and pop culture, becomes obsessed with Pamela Anderson after seeing her in an episode of the series (which he believes to be a documentary) and travels to the United States in a failed attempt to court her and later attempts to abduct her. In a deleted scene, Borat creates a pilot episode of a Kazakh remake of "Baywatch" entitled "Sexydrownwatch", which features "I'm Always Here" and Alexandra Paul reprising her role as Stephanie.


title: Baywatch

text: The red swimsuit that the actresses wore in the series have become iconic. The suits were custom fitted for each actress; Alexandra Paul wore a suit with a higher neckline while shorter cast members wore suits with higher cut legs to give the illusion of height.


title: Baywatch

text: "Baywatch running" refers to the show's numerous scenes, particularly in the opening credits, of its cast members running across the beach in slow motion, usually wearing distinctive red lifeguard gear. The trope is closely associated with the show and often referenced directly in parodies.


title: Baywatch

text: The film adaptation is a comedy, written and directed by Jeremy Garelick. Garelick's previous successes include the rewrite of "The Hangover".


title: Baywatch

text: In September 2012, it was announced that "Reno 911!" co-creator and star Robert Ben Garant would direct the film version of "Baywatch" for Paramount Pictures.


title: Baywatch

text: In October 2014, it was announced that Paramount was moving forward with its big-screen adaptation of "Baywatch" and has loosely attached Dwayne Johnson to the project. The studio also hired Justin Malen to rewrite and attached the comedy writing team of Sean Anders and John Morris to direct.


title: Baywatch

text: In July 2015, it was announced Seth Gordon would direct with Damian Shannon and Mark Swift having written the latest script with Dwayne Johnson still attached to star.


title: Baywatch

text: On August 10, 2015, it was announced that Zac Efron had been cast in the film. Johnson also announced that the film will be R-Rated. The report stated, "The story centers on a by-the-book and very serious lifeguard (Johnson) who is forced to team up with a young rule-flouting hothead (Efron) in order to save their beach from environmental destruction at the hands of an oil tycoon." That same month, reports were saying that Kelly Brook was in contention to star in the film as C.J. Parker, with Kate Upton and Charlotte McKinney also on the shortlist, but Brook denied the rumor the following day on Instagram. Brook later confirmed that she had read the script but was still uncertain if she would appear.


title: Baywatch

text: On November 9, 2015, it was reported that several actresses, including Alexandra Daddario, Nina Dobrev, Ashley Benson, Alexandra Shipp, Shelley Hennig, Bianca Santos, and Denyse Tontz, were in the running for the female lead, with the possibility that some of them could join the film in different roles and other unnamed actresses could be in the running as well. On November 18, 2015, Johnson confirmed Daddario (who previously worked with Johnson on "San Andreas") for the role of Summer, originally played by Eggert in the TV series, and revealed the casting of C.J. and other roles would soon be announced. On January 4, 2016, Johnson announced that actress and model Kelly Rohrbach was cast as C.J. for the film. On January 11, 2016, "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that Priyanka Chopra was in talks to appear in the film in a villainous role. On February 16, 2016, Chopra and Johnson released a video to confirm her participation in the above-mentioned role. On January 20, 2016, a release date of May 19, 2017, was announced and Ilfenesh Hadera joined the cast as Stef, the love interest of Johnson's character. On January 27, 2016, "Variety" reported that Jon Bass was cast as Ronnie, described as funny, awkward and a skilled disco dancer who falls in love with C.J. at the beach.


title: Baywatch

text: The film was released in the United States on May 25, 2017, by Paramount Pictures, and grossed $177.4 million worldwide.


title: Baywatch

text: As of August 2018, "Deadline Hollywood" reported that FremantleMedia International were eyeing a reboot of the franchise.


title: Baywatch

text: In 2019, it was announced that "Baywatch" was being revived as documentary feature film. As they explained on the "Factual America" podcast, filmmakers Matthew Felker and Brian Corso lined up some of the show's top-billed castmembers to take a walk down memory lane for "Baywatch: The Documentary" and talk about their time on the show and the hours they spent in skimpy red suits.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing, as was the Proto-Sinaitic script that later evolved into the Phoenician alphabet. Through the Phoenician alphabet's major child systems (the Greek and Aramaic scripts), the Egyptian hieroglyphic script is ancestral to the majority of scripts in modern use, most prominently the Latin and Cyrillic scripts (through Greek) and the Arabic script, and possibly the Brahmic family of scripts (through Aramaic, Phoenician, and Greek).


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The use of hieroglyphic writing arose from proto-literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age, around the 32nd century BC (Naqada III), with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the Second Dynasty (28th century BC). Egyptian hieroglyphs developed into a mature writing system used for monumental inscription in the classical language of the Middle Kingdom period; during this period, the system made use of about 900 distinct signs. The use of this writing system continued through the New Kingdom and Late Period, and on into the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, extending into the 4th century AD.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: With the final closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost. Although attempts were made, the script remained undeciphered throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphic writing was finally accomplished in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, with the help of the Rosetta Stone.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The word "hieroglyph" comes from the Greek adjective ("hieroglyphikos"), a compound of ( 'sacred') and γλύφω ("glýphō" '(Ι) carve, engrave'; see "glyph") meaning sacred carving.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The glyphs themselves, since the Ptolemaic period, were called ("tà hieroglyphikà [grámmata]") "the sacred engraved letters", the Greek counterpart to the Egyptian expression of "mdw.w-nṯr" "god's words". Greek meant "a carver of hieroglyphs".


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: In English, "hieroglyph" as a noun is recorded from 1590, originally short for nominalized "hieroglyphic" (1580s, with a plural "hieroglyphics"), from adjectival use ("hieroglyphic character").


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The Nag Hammadi texts written in Sahidic Coptic call the hieroglyphs "writings of the magicians, soothsayers" ().


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Hieroglyphs may have emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c. 4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems developed in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, c. 33rd century BC) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette (c. 31st century BC).


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The first full sentence written in mature hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). Around 800 hieroglyphs are known to date back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there were more than 5,000.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably, [were] invented under the influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". There are many instances of early Egypt-Mesopotamia relations, but given the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt". Others have held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy” and that “a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt..."


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Since the 1990s, the above-mentioned discoveries of glyphs at Abydos, dated to between 3400 and 3200 BCE, have shed doubt on the classical notion that the Mesopotamian symbol system predates the Egyptian one. However, Egyptian writing appeared suddenly at that time, while Mesopotamia had a long evolutionary history of the usage of signs - for agricultural and acounting putposes- in tokens dating as early back to circa 8000 BC. Rosalie David stated that "If Egypt did adopt the idea of writing from elsewhere, it was presumably only the concept which was taken over, since the forms of the hieroglyphs are entirely Egyptian in origin and reflect the distinctive flora, fauna and images of Egypt's own landscape."


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that function like an alphabet; logographs, representing morphemes; and determinatives, which narrow down the meaning of logographic or phonetic words.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE), and after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the misleading quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from some of the foreign conquerors. Another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: By the 4th century AD, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the "myth of allegorical hieroglyphs" was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in 391 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I; the last known inscription is from Philae, known as the Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, from 394.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The "Hieroglyphica" of Horapollo (c. 5th century) appears to retain some genuine knowledge about the writing system. It offers an explanation of close to 200 signs.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Some are identified correctly, such as the "goose" hieroglyph ("zꜣ") representing the word for "son".


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Early attempts at decipherment are due to Dhul-Nun al-Misri and Ibn Wahshiyya (9th and 10th century, respectively).


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: As no bilingual texts were available, any such symbolic 'translation' could be proposed without the possibility of verification. It was not until Athanasius Kircher in the mid 17th century that scholars began to think the hieroglyphs might also represent sounds. Kircher was familiar with Coptic, and thought that it might be the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs, but was held back by a belief in the mystical nature of the symbols.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The breakthrough in decipherment came only with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's troops in 1799 (during Napoleon's Egyptian invasion).


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: As the stone presented a hieroglyphic and a demotic version of the same text in parallel with a Greek translation, plenty of material for falsifiable studies in translation was suddenly available. In the early 19th century, scholars such as Silvestre de Sacy, Johan David Åkerblad, and Thomas Young studied the inscriptions on the stone, and were able to make some headway. Finally, Jean-François Champollion made the complete decipherment by the 1820s. In his "Lettre à M. Dacier" (1822), he wrote:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: It is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Visually, hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or abstract elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but all generally perfectly recognizable in form. However, the same sign can, according to context, be interpreted in diverse ways: as a phonogram (phonetic reading), as a logogram, or as an ideogram (semagram; "determinative") (semantic reading). The determinative was not read as a phonetic constituent, but facilitated understanding by differentiating the word from its homophones.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Most non-determinative hieroglyphic signs are "phonograms", whose meaning is determined by pronunciation, independent of visual characteristics. This follows the rebus principle where, for example, the picture of an eye could stand not only for the English word "eye", but also for its phonetic equivalent, the first person pronoun "I".


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Phonograms formed with one consonant are called "uniliteral" signs; with two consonants, "biliteral" signs; with three, "triliteral" signs.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Twenty-four uniliteral signs make up the so-called hieroglyphic alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphic writing does not normally indicate vowels, unlike cuneiform, and for that reason has been labelled by some as an "abjad", i.e., an alphabet without vowels.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Thus, hieroglyphic writing representing a pintail duck is read in Egyptian as "sꜣ", derived from the main consonants of the Egyptian word for this duck: 's', 'ꜣ' and 't'. (Note that ꜣ or , two half-rings opening to the left, sometimes replaced by the digit '3', is the Egyptian "alef.")


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: It is also possible to use the hieroglyph of the pintail duck without a link to its meaning in order to represent the two phonemes "s" and "ꜣ", independently of any vowels that could accompany these consonants, and in this way write the word: "sꜣ", "son"; or when complemented by other signs detailed below "sꜣ", "keep, watch"; and "sꜣṯ.w", "hard ground". For example:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: G38-Z1sthe same character used only in order to signify, according to the context, "pintail duck" or, with the appropriate determinative, "son", two words having the same or similar consonants; the meaning of the little vertical stroke will be explained further on under Logograms:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: As in the Arabic script, not all vowels were written in Egyptian hieroglyphs; it is debatable whether vowels were written at all. Possibly, as with Arabic, the semivowels and (as in English W and Y) could double as the vowels and . In modern transcriptions, an "e" is added between consonants to aid in their pronunciation. For example, "nfr" "good" is typically written "nefer". This does not reflect Egyptian vowels, which are obscure, but is merely a modern convention. Likewise, the "ꜣ" and ʾ are commonly transliterated as "a", as in Ra.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Hieroglyphs are inscribed in rows of pictures arranged in horizontal lines or vertical columns. Both hieroglyph lines as well as signs contained in the lines are read with upper content having precedence over content below. The lines or columns, and the individual inscriptions within them, read from left to right in rare instances only and for particular reasons at that; ordinarily however, they read from right to left–the Egyptians' preferred direction of writing (although, for convenience, modern texts are often normalized into left-to-right order). The direction toward which asymmetrical hieroglyphs face indicate their proper reading order. For example, when human and animal hieroglyphs face or look toward the left, they almost always must be read from left to right, and vice versa.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: As in many ancient writing systems, words are not separated by blanks or punctuation marks. However, certain hieroglyphs appear particularly common only at the end of words, making it possible to readily distinguish words.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: The Egyptian hieroglyphic script contained 24 uniliterals (symbols that stood for single consonants, much like letters in English). It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never did so and never simplified their complex writing into a true alphabet.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Each uniliteral glyph once had a unique reading, but several of these fell together as Old Egyptian developed into Middle Egyptian. For example, the folded-cloth glyph (𓋴) seems to have been originally an /s/ and the door-bolt glyph (𓊃) a /θ/ sound, but these both came to be pronounced , as the sound was lost. A few uniliterals first appear in Middle Egyptian texts.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Besides the uniliteral glyphs, there are also the biliteral and triliteral signs, to represent a specific sequence of two or three consonants, consonants and vowels, and a few as vowel combinations only, in the language.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Egyptian writing is often redundant: in fact, it happens very frequently that a word is followed by several characters writing the same sounds, in order to guide the reader. For example, the word "nfr", "beautiful, good, perfect", was written with a unique triliteral that was read as "nfr":


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: However, it is considerably more common to add to that triliteral, the uniliterals for "f" and "r". The word can thus be written as "nfr+f+r", but one still reads it as merely "nfr". The two alphabetic characters are adding clarity to the spelling of the preceding triliteral hieroglyph.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Redundant characters accompanying biliteral or triliteral signs are called "phonetic complements" (or complementaries). They can be placed in front of the sign (rarely), after the sign (as a general rule), or even framing it (appearing both before and after). Ancient Egyptian scribes consistently avoided leaving large areas of blank space in their writing and might add additional phonetic complements or sometimes even invert the order of signs if this would result in a more aesthetically pleasing appearance (good scribes attended to the artistic, and even religious, aspects of the hieroglyphs, and would not simply view them as a communication tool). Various examples of the use of phonetic complements can be seen below:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Notably, phonetic complements were also used to allow the reader to differentiate between signs that are homophones, or which do not always have a unique reading. For example, the symbol of "the seat" (or chair):


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Finally, it sometimes happens that the pronunciation of words might be changed because of their connection to Ancient Egyptian: in this case, it is not rare for writing to adopt a compromise in notation, the two readings being indicated jointly. For example, the adjective "bnj", "sweet", became "bnr". In Middle Egyptian, one can write:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: which is fully read as "bnr", the "j" not being pronounced but retained in order to keep a written connection with the ancient word (in the same fashion as the English language words "through", "knife", or "victuals", which are no longer pronounced the way they are written.)


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Besides a phonetic interpretation, characters can also be read for their meaning: in this instance, logograms are being spoken (or ideograms) and "semagrams" (the latter are also called determinatives).


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: A hieroglyph used as a logogram defines the object of which it is an image. Logograms are therefore the most frequently used common nouns; they are always accompanied by a mute vertical stroke indicating their status as a logogram (the usage of a vertical stroke is further explained below); in theory, all hieroglyphs would have the ability to be used as logograms. Logograms can be accompanied by phonetic complements. Here are some examples:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Determinatives or semagrams (semantic symbols specifying meaning) are placed at the end of a word. These mute characters serve to clarify what the word is about, as homophonic glyphs are common. If a similar procedure existed in English, words with the same spelling would be followed by an indicator that would not be read, but which would fine-tune the meaning: "retort [chemistry]" and "retort [rhetoric]" would thus be distinguished.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Here, are several examples of the use of determinatives borrowed from the book, "Je lis les hiéroglyphes" ("I am reading hieroglyphs") by Jean Capart, which illustrate their importance:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: nfr-w-A17-Z3 – "nfrw" ("w" and the three strokes are the marks of the plural): [literally] "the beautiful young people", that is to say, the young military recruits. The word has a young-person determinative symbol: – which is the determinative indicating babies and children;


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: nfr-:f:r:t-B1 – "nfr.t" (".t" is here the suffix that forms the feminine): meaning "the nubile young woman", with B1 as the determinative indicating a woman;


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: nfr-nfr-nfr-pr – "nfrw" (the tripling of the character serving to express the plural, flexional ending "w") : meaning "foundations (of a house)", with the house as a determinative, pr;


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: All these words have a meliorative connotation: "good, beautiful, perfect". The "Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian" by Raymond A. Faulkner, gives some twenty words that are read "nfr" or which are formed from this word.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Rarely, the names of gods are placed within a cartouche; the two last names of the sitting king are always placed within a cartouche:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Some signs are the contraction of several others. These signs have, however, a function and existence of their own: for example, a forearm where the hand holds a scepter is used as a determinative for words meaning "to direct, to drive" and their derivatives.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Standard orthography—"correct" spelling—in Egyptian is much looser than in modern languages. In fact, one or several variants exist for almost every word. One finds:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: However, many of these apparent spelling errors constitute an issue of chronology. Spelling and standards varied over time, so the writing of a word during the Old Kingdom might be considerably different during the New Kingdom. Furthermore, the Egyptians were perfectly content to include older orthography ("historical spelling") alongside newer practices, as though it were acceptable in English to use archaic spellings in modern texts. Most often, ancient "spelling errors" are simply misinterpretations of context. Today, hieroglyphicists use numerous cataloguing systems (notably the "Manuel de Codage" and "Gardiner's Sign List") to clarify the presence of determinatives, ideograms, and other ambiguous signs in transliteration.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Another way in which hieroglyphs work is illustrated by the two Egyptian words pronounced "pr" (usually vocalised as "per"). One word is 'house', and its hieroglyphic representation is straightforward:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Here, the 'house' hieroglyph works as a logogram: it represents the word with a single sign. The vertical stroke below the hieroglyph is a common way of indicating that a glyph is working as a logogram.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Another word "pr" is the verb 'to go out, leave'. When this word is written, the 'house' hieroglyph is used as a phonetic symbol:


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Here, the 'house' glyph stands for the consonants "pr". The 'mouth' glyph below it is a "phonetic complement:" it is read as "r", reinforcing the phonetic reading of "pr". The third hieroglyph is a "determinative": it is an ideogram for verbs of motion that gives the reader an idea of the meaning of the word.


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: Egyptian hieroglyphs were added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2 which introduced the Egyptian Hieroglyphs block (U+13000–U+1342F).


title: Egyptian hieroglyphs

text: , four fonts, "Aegyptus", "NewGardiner", "Noto Sans Egyptian Hieroglyphs" and "JSeshFont" support this range. Another font, "Segoe UI Historic", comes bundled with Windows 10 and also contains glyphs for the Egyptian Hieroglyphs block. Segoe UI Historic excludes three glyphs depicting phallus (Gardiner's D52, D52A D53, Unicode code points U+130B8–U+130BA).


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: As part of Napoleon's plans to invade England, the French and Spanish fleets combined to take control of the English Channel and provide the Grande Armée safe passage. The allied fleet, under the command of the French admiral, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, sailed from the port of Cádiz in the south of Spain on 18 October 1805. They encountered the British fleet under Lord Nelson, recently assembled to meet this threat, in the Atlantic Ocean along the southwest coast of Spain, off Cape Trafalgar.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Nelson was outnumbered, with 27 British ships of the line to 33 allied ships including the largest warship in either fleet, the Spanish "Santísima Trinidad". To address this imbalance, Nelson sailed his fleet directly at the allied battle line's flank, hoping to break it into pieces. Villeneuve had worried that Nelson might attempt this tactic but, for various reasons, had made no plans in case this occurred. The plan worked almost perfectly; Nelson's columns split the Franco-Spanish fleet in three, isolating the rear half from Villeneuve's flag aboard "Bucentaure". The allied vanguard sailed off while it attempted to turn around, giving the British temporary superiority over the remainder of their fleet. The ensuing fierce battle resulted in 22 allied ships being lost, while the British lost none.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The tactic exposed the leading ships in the British lines to intense fire from multiple ships as they approached the Franco-Spanish lines. Nelson's own led the front column and was almost knocked out of action. Nelson was shot by a French musketeer and died shortly before the battle ended. Villeneuve was captured along with his flagship "Bucentaure". He attended Nelson's funeral while a captive on parole in Britain. The senior Spanish fleet officer, Admiral Federico Gravina, escaped with the remnant of the Franco-Spanish fleet (a third of what it had been in number of ships); he died of wounds sustained during the battle five months later.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The victory confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century, and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: In 1805, the First French Empire, under Napoleon Bonaparte, was the dominant military land power on the European continent, while the British Royal Navy controlled the seas. During the course of the war, the British imposed a naval blockade on France, which affected trade and kept the French from fully mobilising their naval resources. Despite several successful evasions of the blockade by the French navy, it failed to inflict a major defeat upon the British, who were able to attack French interests at home and abroad with relative ease.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: When the Third Coalition declared war on France, after the short-lived Peace of Amiens, Napoleon renewed his determination to invade Britain. To do so, he needed to ensure that the Royal Navy would be unable to disrupt the invasion flotilla, which would require control of the English Channel.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The main French fleets were at Brest in Brittany and at Toulon on the Mediterranean coast. Other ports on the French Atlantic coast harboured smaller squadrons. France and Spain were allied, so the Spanish fleet based in Cádiz and Ferrol was also available.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The British possessed an experienced and well-trained corps of naval officers. By contrast, some of the best officers in the French navy had either been executed or had left the service during the early part of the French Revolution.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve had taken command of the French Mediterranean fleet following the death of Latouche Treville. There had been more competent officers, but they had either been employed elsewhere or had fallen from Napoleon's favour. Villeneuve had shown a distinct lack of enthusiasm for facing Nelson and the Royal Navy after the French defeat at the Battle of the Nile in 1798.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Napoleon's naval plan in 1805 was for the French and Spanish fleets in the Mediterranean and Cádiz to break through the blockade and join forces in the Caribbean. They would then return, assist the fleet in Brest to emerge from the blockade, and together clear the English Channel of Royal Navy ships, ensuring a safe passage for the invasion barges.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Early in 1805, Vice Admiral Lord Nelson commanded the British fleet blockading Toulon. Unlike William Cornwallis, who maintained a close blockade off Brest with the Channel Fleet, Nelson adopted a loose blockade in the hope of luring the French out for a major battle, saying; 'to be able to get at the enemy you must let "them" come out to "you", if "you" cannot get at "them". However, Villeneuve's fleet successfully evaded Nelson's when the British were blown off station by storms. Nelson commenced a search of the Mediterranean, supposing that the French intended to make for Egypt, but Villeneuve instead took his fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar, rendezvoused with the Spanish fleet in Cádiz, and sailed as planned for the Caribbean. Once Nelson realised that the French were crossing the Atlantic Ocean, he set off in pursuit. He missed them by just days in the West Indies as a result of false information.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Having lured the British to the West Indies Villeneuve returned from the Caribbean to Europe, intending to break the blockade at Brest. Nelson, still in fear for Egypt, made to return to the Mediterranean. The fast sailing corvette taking word of his plans back to the admiralty spotted the French heading further north. On receiving this intelligence Lord Barham was alive to the enemy strategy and immediately ordered Admiral William Cornwallis to combine his squadron with that of Vice Admiral Sir Robert Calder off Ferrol and to stretch out thirty to forty leagues into the Atlantic to block the French from entering the Channel.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Calder intercepted the French resulting in an inconclusive engagement during the Battle of Cape Finisterre in which two of the Spanish ships were captured. Villeneuve abandoned his plan and sailed back to Ferrol in northern Spain. There he received orders from Napoleon to return to Brest according to the main plan.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Napoleon's invasion plans for Britain depended on having a sufficiently large number of ships of the line before Boulogne in France. This would require Villeneuve's force of 33 ships to join Vice-Admiral Ganteaume's force of 21 ships at Brest, along with a squadron of five ships under Captain Allemand, which would have given him a combined force of 59 ships of the line.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: When Villeneuve set sail from Ferrol on 10 August, he was under orders from Napoleon to sail northward toward Brest. Instead, he worried that the British were observing his manoeuvres, so on 11 August, he sailed southward towards Cádiz on the southwestern coast of Spain. With no sign of Villeneuve's fleet, on 25 August, the three French army corps' invasion force near Boulogne broke camp and marched into Germany, where it was later engaged. This ended the immediate threat of invasion.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The same month, Admiral Lord Nelson returned home to Britain after two years of duty at sea. He remained ashore for 25 days and was warmly received by his countrymen. Word reached Britain on 2 September about the combined French and Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbour. Nelson had to wait until 15 September before his ship, HMS "Victory", was ready to sail.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: On 15 August, Cornwallis decided to detach 20 ships of the line from the fleet guarding the English Channel to sail southward to engage the enemy forces in Spain. This left the Channel short of large vessels, with only 11 ships of the line present. This detached force formed the nucleus of the British fleet at Trafalgar. This fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Calder, reached Cádiz on 15 September. Nelson joined the fleet on 28 September to take command.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The British fleet used frigates (faster, but too fragile for the line of battle), to keep a constant watch on the harbour, while the main force remained out of sight, approximately 50 miles (80 km) west of the shore. Nelson's hope was to lure the combined Franco-Spanish force out and engage it in a decisive battle. The force watching the harbour was led by Captain Blackwood, commanding HMS "Euryalus". His squadron of seven ships comprised five frigates, a schooner, and a brig.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: At this point, Nelson's fleet badly needed provisioning. On 2 October, five ships of the line, HMS "Queen", "Canopus", "Spencer", "Zealous", "Tigre", and the frigate HMS "Endymion" were dispatched to Gibraltar under Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Louis for supplies.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: These ships were later diverted for convoy duty in the Mediterranean, although Nelson had expected them to return. Similarly, HMS Superb under Captain Richard Goodwin Keats had been sent to the dockyard for a re-fit after four years at sea including the chase of Villeneuve and was expected to return to the fleet where Keats was to be Nelson's second, but the ship was not released in time. Other British ships continued to arrive, and by 15 October the fleet was up to full strength for the battle. Nelson also lost Calder's flagship, the 98-gun "Prince of Wales", which he sent home as Calder had been recalled by the Admiralty to face a court-martial for his apparent lack of aggression during the engagement off Cape Finisterre on 22 July.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Meanwhile, Villeneuve's fleet in Cádiz was also suffering from a serious supply shortage that could not be easily rectified by the cash-poor French. The blockade maintained by the British fleet had made it difficult for the Franco-Spanish allies to obtain stores, and their ships were ill-equipped. Villeneuve's ships were also more than two thousand men short of the force needed to sail. These were not the only problems faced by the Franco-Spanish fleet. The main French ships of the line had been kept in harbour for years by the British blockade with only brief sorties. The French crews included few experienced sailors, and, as most of the crew had to be taught the elements of seamanship on the few occasions when they got to sea, gunnery was neglected. The hasty voyage across the Atlantic and back used up vital supplies. Villeneuve's supply situation began to improve in October, but news of Nelson's arrival made Villeneuve reluctant to leave port. His captains had held a vote on the matter and decided to stay in harbour.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: On 16 September, Napoleon gave orders for the French and Spanish ships at Cádiz to put to sea at the first favourable opportunity, join with seven Spanish ships of the line then at Cartagena, go to Naples and land the soldiers they carried to reinforce his troops there, then fight decisively if they met a numerically inferior British fleet.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: On 21 October, Admiral Nelson had 27 ships of the line with 2,148 cannon, and a total of 17,000 crewmen and marines under his command. Nelson's flagship, HMS "Victory", captained by Thomas Masterman Hardy, was one of three 100-gun first-rates in his fleet. He also had four 98-gun second-rates and 20 third-rates. One of the third rates was an 80-gun vessel, and 16 were 74-gun vessels. The remaining three were 64-gun ships, which were being phased out of the Royal Navy at the time of the battle. Nelson also had four frigates of 38 or 36 guns, a 12-gun schooner and a 10-gun cutter.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Against Nelson, Vice-Admiral Villeneuve, sailing on his flagship "Bucentaure", fielded 33 ships of the line, including some of the largest in the world at the time. The Spanish contributed four first-rates to the fleet - three of these ships, one at 130 guns ("Santísima Trinidad") and two at 112 guns ("Príncipe de Asturias", "Santa Ana"), were much larger than anything under Nelson's command. The fourth first-rate carried 100 guns. The fleet had six 80-gun third-rates, (four French and two Spanish), and one Spanish 64-gun third-rate. The remaining 22 third-rates were 74-gun vessels, of which 14 were French and eight Spanish. In total, the Spanish contributed 15 ships of the line and the French 18 along with some 30,000 men and marines manning 2,632 canon. The fleet also included five 40-gun frigates and two 18-gun brigs, all French.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The prevailing tactical orthodoxy at the time involved manoeuvring to approach the enemy fleet in a single line of battle and then engaging broadside in parallel lines. In previous times, fleets had usually engaged in a mixed mêlée of chaotic one-on-one battles. One reason for the development of the line of battle system was to facilitate control of the fleet: if all the ships were in line, signalling in battle became possible. The line also allowed either side to disengage by breaking away in formation; if the attacker chose to continue, their line would be broken as well. This often led to inconclusive battles, or allowed the losing side to minimise its losses; but Nelson wanted a conclusive action, giving his well-trained crews a chance to fight ship to ship.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Nelson's solution to the problem was to cut the opposing line in three. Approaching in two columns, sailing perpendicular to the enemy's line, one towards the centre of the opposing line and one towards the trailing end, his ships would surround the middle third, and force them to fight to the end. Nelson hoped specifically to cut the line just in front of the French flagship, "Bucentaure"; the isolated ships in front of the break would not be able to see the flagship's signals, which he hoped would take them out of combat while they re-formed. This echoed the tactics used by Admiral Duncan at the Battle of Camperdown and Admiral Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, both in 1797.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The plan had three principal advantages. First, the British fleet would close with the Franco-Spanish as quickly as possible, preventing their escape. Second, it would quickly bring on a mêlée and frantic battle by breaking the Franco-Spanish line and inducing a series of individual ship-to-ship actions, in which the British knew they were likely to prevail. Nelson knew that the superior seamanship, faster gunnery and better morale of his crews were great advantages. Third, it would bring a decisive concentration on the rear of the Franco-Spanish fleet. The ships in the van of the enemy fleet would have to turn back to support the rear, which would take a long time. Additionally, once the Franco-Spanish line had been broken, their ships would be relatively defenceless against powerful broadsides from the British fleet, and it would take them a long time to reposition to return fire.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The main drawback of attacking head-on was that as the leading British ships approached, the Franco-Spanish Combined Fleet would be able to direct raking broadside fire at their bows, to which they would be unable to reply. To lessen the time the fleet was exposed to this danger, Nelson had his ships make all available sail (including stunsails), yet another departure from the norm. He was also well aware that French and Spanish gunners were ill-trained and would have difficulty firing accurately from a moving gun platform. The Combined Fleet was sailing across a heavy swell, causing the ships to roll heavily and exacerbating the problem. Nelson's plan was indeed a gamble, but a carefully calculated one.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: During the period of blockade off the coast of Spain in October, Nelson instructed his captains, over two dinners aboard "Victory", on his plan for the approaching battle. In an animated conversation with his favourite captain, Richard Goodwin Keats, who was expected to be his second in the forthcoming battle, Nelson explained a refined battle plan whilst the two were walking in the garden of Merton in August 1805. The order of sailing, in which the fleet was arranged when the enemy was first sighted, was to be the order of the ensuing action so that no time would be wasted in forming two lines. The first, led by his second-in-command Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, was to sail into the rear of the enemy line, while the other, led by Nelson, was to sail into the centre and vanguard. In preparation for the battle, Nelson ordered the ships of his fleet to be painted in a distinctive yellow and black pattern (later known as the Nelson Chequer) that would make them easy to distinguish from their opponents.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Nelson was careful to point out that something had to be left to chance. Nothing is sure in a sea battle, so he left his captains free from all hampering rules by telling them that "No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy." In short, circumstances would dictate the execution, subject to the guiding rule that the enemy's rear was to be cut off and superior force concentrated on that part of the enemy's line.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Admiral Villeneuve himself expressed his belief that Nelson would use some sort of unorthodox attack, presciently speculating that Nelson would drive right at his line. But his long game of cat and mouse with Nelson had worn him down, and he was suffering from a loss of nerve. Fearing that his inexperienced officers would be unable to maintain formation in more than one group, he chose to keep the single line that became Nelson's target.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The Combined Fleet of French and Spanish warships anchored in Cádiz under the leadership of Admiral Villeneuve was in disarray. On 16 September 1805 Villeneuve received orders from Napoleon to sail the Combined Fleet from Cádiz to Naples. At first, Villeneuve was optimistic about returning to the Mediterranean, but soon had second thoughts. A war council was held aboard his flagship, "Bucentaure", on 8 October. While some of the French captains wished to obey Napoleon's orders, the Spanish captains and other French officers, including Villeneuve, thought it best to remain in Cádiz. Villeneuve changed his mind yet again on 18 October 1805, ordering the Combined Fleet to sail immediately even though there were only very light winds.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The sudden change was prompted by a letter Villeneuve had received on 18 October, informing him that Vice-Admiral François Rosily had arrived in Madrid with orders to take command of the Combined Fleet. Stung by the prospect of being disgraced before the fleet, Villeneuve resolved to go to sea before his successor could reach Cádiz. At the same time, he received intelligence that a detachment of six British ships (Admiral Louis' squadron), had docked at Gibraltar, thus weakening the British fleet. This was used as the pretext for sudden change.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The weather, however, suddenly turned calm following a week of gales. This slowed the progress of the fleet leaving the harbour, giving the British plenty of warning. Villeneuve had drawn up plans to form a force of four squadrons, each containing both French and Spanish ships. Following their earlier vote on 8 October to stay put, some captains were reluctant to leave Cádiz, and as a result they failed to follow Villeneuve's orders closely and the fleet straggled out of the harbour in no particular formation.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: It took most of 20 October for Villeneuve to get his fleet organised; it eventually set sail in three columns for the Straits of Gibraltar to the southeast. That same evening, "Achille" spotted a force of 18 British ships of the line in pursuit. The fleet began to prepare for battle and during the night, they were ordered into a single line. The following day, Nelson's fleet of 27 ships of the line and four frigates was spotted in pursuit from the northwest with the wind behind it. Villeneuve again ordered his fleet into three columns, but soon changed his mind and restored a single line. The result was a sprawling, uneven formation.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: At 5:40 a.m. on 21 October, the British were about 21 miles (34 km) to the northwest of Cape Trafalgar, with the Franco-Spanish fleet between the British and the Cape. About 6 a.m., Nelson gave the order to prepare for battle. At 8 a.m., the British frigate "Euryalus", which had been keeping watch on the Combined Fleet overnight, observed the British fleet still "forming the lines" in which it would attack.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: At 8 a.m., Villeneuve ordered the fleet to "wear together" (turn about) and return to Cádiz. This reversed the order of the allied line, placing the rear division under Rear-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley in the vanguard. The wind became contrary at this point, often shifting direction. The very light wind rendered manoeuvring virtually impossible for all but the most expert seamen. The inexperienced crews had difficulty with the changing conditions, and it took nearly an hour and a half for Villeneuve's order to be completed. The French and Spanish fleet now formed an uneven, angular crescent, with the slower ships generally to leeward and closer to the shore.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: By 11 a.m. Nelson's entire fleet was visible to Villeneuve, drawn up in two parallel columns. The two fleets would be within range of each other within an hour. Villeneuve was concerned at this point about forming up a line, as his ships were unevenly spaced in an irregular formation drawn out nearly five miles (8 km) long as Nelson's fleet approached.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: As the British drew closer, they could see that the enemy was not sailing in a tight order, but in irregular groups. Nelson could not immediately make out the French flagship as the French and Spanish were not flying command pennants.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Nelson was outnumbered and outgunned, the enemy totalling nearly 30,000 men and 2,568 guns to his 17,000 men and 2,148 guns. The Franco-Spanish fleet also had six more ships of the line, and so could more readily combine their fire. There was no way for some of Nelson's ships to avoid being "doubled on" or even "trebled on".


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: As the two fleets drew closer, anxiety began to build among officers and sailors; one British sailor described the approach thus: "During this momentous preparation, the human mind had ample time for meditation, for it was evident that the fate of England rested on this battle".


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The battle progressed largely according to Nelson's plan. At 11:45, Nelson sent the flag signal, "England expects that every man will do his duty".


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The term "England" was widely used at the time to refer to the United Kingdom; the British fleet included significant contingents from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Unlike the photographic depiction above, this signal would have been shown on the mizzen mast only and would have required 12 lifts.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: As the battle opened, the French and Spanish were in a ragged curved line headed north. As planned, the British fleet was approaching the Franco-Spanish line in two columns. Leading the northern, windward column in "Victory" was Nelson, while Collingwood in the 100-gun "Royal Sovereign" led the second, leeward, column. The two British columns approached from the west at nearly a right angle to the allied line. Nelson led his column into a feint toward the van of the Franco-Spanish fleet and then abruptly turned toward the actual point of attack. Collingwood altered the course of his column slightly so that the two lines converged at this line of attack.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Just before his column engaged the allied forces, Collingwood said to his officers: "Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter." Because the winds were very light during the battle, all the ships were moving extremely slowly, and the foremost British ships were under heavy fire from several of the allied ships for almost an hour before their own guns could bear.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: At noon, Villeneuve sent the signal "engage the enemy", and "Fougueux" fired her first trial shot at "Royal Sovereign". "Royal Sovereign" had all sails out and, having recently had her bottom cleaned, outran the rest of the British fleet. As she approached the allied line, she came under fire from "Fougueux", "Indomptable", "San Justo", and "San Leandro", before breaking the line just astern of Admiral Alava's flagship "Santa Ana", into which she fired a devastating double-shotted raking broadside. On board "Victory", Nelson pointed to "Royal Sovereign" and said, "See how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action!" At approximately the same moment, Collingwood remarked to his captain, Edward Rotheram, "What would Nelson give to be here?"


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The second ship in the British lee column, "Belleisle", was engaged by "L'Aigle", "Achille", "Neptune", and "Fougueux"; she was soon completely dismasted, unable to manoeuvre and largely unable to fight, as her sails blinded her batteries, but kept flying her flag for 45 minutes until the following British ships came to her rescue.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: For 40 minutes, "Victory" was under fire from "Héros", "Santísima Trinidad", "Redoutable", and "Neptune"; although many shots went astray, others killed and wounded a number of her crew and shot her wheel away, so that she had to be steered from her tiller belowdecks, all before she could respond. At 12:45, "Victory" cut the enemy line between Villeneuve's flagship "Bucentaure" and "Redoutable"; she came close to "Bucentaure", firing a devastating raking broadside through "Bucentaure" stern which killed and wounded many on her gundecks. Villeneuve thought that boarding would take place, and with the Eagle of his ship in hand, told his men, "I will throw it onto the enemy ship and we will take it back there!" However "Victory" engaged the 74-gun "Redoutable"; "Bucentaure" was left to the next three ships of the British windward column: "Temeraire", "Conqueror", and .


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: A general mêlée ensued. "Victory" locked masts with the French "Redoutable," whose crew, including a strong infantry corps (with three captains and four lieutenants), gathered for an attempt to board and seize "Victory". A musket bullet fired from the mizzentop of "Redoutable" struck Nelson in the left shoulder, passed through his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae, and lodged two inches below his right scapula in the muscles of his back. Nelson exclaimed, "They finally succeeded, I am dead." He was carried below decks.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: "Victory"s gunners were called on deck to fight boarders, and she ceased firing. The gunners were forced back below decks by French grenades. As the French were preparing to board "Victory", "Temeraire", the second ship in the British windward column, approached from the starboard bow of "Redoutable" and fired on the exposed French crew with a carronade, causing many casualties.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: At 13:55, the French Captain Lucas of "Redoutable", with 99 fit men out of 643 and severely wounded himself, surrendered. The French "Bucentaure" was isolated by "Victory" and "Temeraire", and then engaged by HMS "Neptune", , and "Conqueror"; similarly, "Santísima Trinidad" was isolated and overwhelmed, surrendering after three hours.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: As more and more British ships entered the battle, the ships of the allied centre and rear were gradually overwhelmed. The allied van, after long remaining quiescent, made a futile demonstration and then sailed away. During the combat, Gravina was wounded, while Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano and Cosme Damián Churruca —commanders of the "Bahama" and "San Juan Nepomuceno", respectively— were killed after ordering their ships not to surrender. Gravina died from his wounds months later. The British took 22 vessels of the Franco-Spanish fleet and lost none. Among the captured French ships were "L'Aigle", "Algésiras", , "Bucentaure", "Fougueux", "Intrépide", "Redoutable", and "Swiftsure". The Spanish ships taken were "Argonauta", "Bahama", "Monarca", "Neptuno", "San Agustín", "San Ildefonso", "San Juan Nepomuceno", "Santísima Trinidad", and "Santa Ana". Of these, "Redoutable" sank, and "Santísima Trinidad" and "Argonauta" were scuttled by the British. "Achille" exploded, "Intrépide" and "San Augustín" burned, and "L'Aigle", "Berwick", "Fougueux", and "Monarca" were wrecked in a gale following the battle.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: As Nelson lay dying, he ordered the fleet to anchor, as a storm was predicted. However, when the storm blew up, many of the severely damaged ships sank or ran aground on the shoals. A few of them were recaptured, some by the French and Spanish prisoners overcoming the small prize crews, others by ships sallying from Cádiz. Surgeon William Beatty heard Nelson murmur, "Thank God I have done my duty"; when he returned, Nelson's voice had faded, and his pulse was very weak. He looked up as Beatty took his pulse, then closed his eyes. Nelson's chaplain, Alexander Scott, who remained by Nelson as he died, recorded his last words as "God and my country." It has been suggested by Nelson historian Craig Cabell that Nelson was actually reciting his own prayer as he fell into his death coma, as the words 'God' and 'my country' are closely linked therein. Nelson died at half-past four, three hours after being hit.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Towards the end of the battle, and with the combined fleet being overwhelmed, the still relatively un-engaged portion of the van under Rear-Admiral Dumanoir Le Pelley tried to come to the assistance of the collapsing centre. After failing to fight his way through, he decided to break off the engagement, and led four French ships, his flagship the 80-gun "Formidable", the 74-gun ships "Scipion", "Duguay Trouin" and "Mont Blanc" away from the fighting. He headed at first for the Straits of Gibraltar, intending to carry out Villeneuve's original orders and make for Toulon. On 22 October he changed his mind, remembering a powerful British squadron under Rear-Admiral Thomas Louis was patrolling the straits, and headed north, hoping to reach one of the French Atlantic ports. With a storm gathering in strength off the Spanish coast, he sailed westwards to clear Cape St. Vincent, prior to heading north-west, swinging eastwards across the Bay of Biscay, and aiming to reach the French port at Rochefort. These four ships remained at large until their encounter with and attempt to chase a British frigate brought them in range of a British squadron under Sir Richard Strachan, which captured them all on 4 November 1805 at the Battle of Cape Ortegal.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Only eleven ships escaped to Cádiz, and, of those, only five were considered seaworthy. The seriously wounded Admiral Gravina passed command of the remainder of the fleet over to Commodore Julien Cosmao on 23 October. From shore, the allied commanders could see an opportunity for a rescue mission. Cosmao claimed in his report that the rescue plan was entirely his idea, but Vice-Admiral Escaño recorded a meeting of Spanish and French commodores at which a planned rescue was discussed and agreed upon. Enrique MacDonell and Cosmao were of equal rank and both raised commodore's pennants before hoisting anchor. Both sets of mariners were determined to make an attempt to recapture some of the prizes. Cosmao ordered the rigging of his ship, the 74-gun "Pluton", to be repaired and reinforced her crew (which had been depleted by casualties from the battle), with sailors from the French frigate "Hermione". Taking advantage of a favourable northwesterly wind, "Pluton", the 80-gun "Neptune" and "Indomptable", the Spanish 100-gun "Rayo" and 74-gun "San Francisco de Asís", together with five French frigates and two brigs, sailed out of the harbour towards the British.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Soon after leaving port, the wind shifted to west-southwest, raising a heavy sea with the result that most of the British prizes broke their tow ropes, and drifting far to leeward, were only partially resecured. The combined squadron came in sight at noon, causing Collingwood to summon his most battle-ready ships to meet the threat. In doing so, he ordered them to cast off towing their prizes. He had formed a defensive line of ten ships by three o'clock in the afternoon and approached the Franco-Spanish squadron, covering the remainder of their prizes which stood out to sea. The Franco-Spanish squadron, numerically inferior, chose not to approach within gunshot and then declined to attack. Collingwood also chose not to seek action, and in the confusion of the powerful storm, the French frigates managed to retake two Spanish ships of the line which had been cast off by their British captors, the 112-gun "Santa Ana" and 80-gun "Neptuno", taking them in tow and making for Cádiz. On being taken in tow, the Spanish crews rose up against their British prize crews, putting them to work as prisoners.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Despite this initial success the Franco-Spanish force, hampered by battle damage, struggled in the heavy seas. "Neptuno" was eventually wrecked off Rota in the gale, while "Santa Ana" reached port. The French 80-gun ship "Indomptable" was wrecked on the 24th or 25th off the town of Rota on the northwest point of the bay of Cádiz. At the time "Indomptable" had 1,200 men on board, but no more than 100 were saved. "San Francisco de Asís" was driven ashore in Cádiz Bay, near Fort Santa Catalina, although her crew was saved. "Rayo", an old three-decker with more than 50 years of service, anchored off Sanlúcar, a few leagues to the northwest of Rota. There, she lost her masts, already damaged in the battle. Heartened by the approach of the squadron, the French crew of the former flagship "Bucentaure" also rose up and retook the ship from the British prize crew but she was wrecked later on 23 October. "Aigle" escaped from the British ship HMS "Defiance", but was wrecked off the Port of Santa María on 23 October; while the French prisoners on "Berwick" cut the tow cables, but caused her to founder off Sanlúcar on 22 October. The crew of "Algésiras" rose up and managed to sail into Cádiz.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Observing that some of the leewardmost of the prizes were escaping towards the Spanish coast, "Leviathan" asked for and was granted permission by Collingwood to try to retrieve the prizes and bring them to anchor. "Leviathan" chased "Monarca", but on 24 October she came across "Rayo", dismasted but still flying Spanish colours, at anchor off the shoals of Sanlúcar. At this point the 74-gun HMS "Donegal", en route from Gibraltar under Captain Pulteney Malcolm, was seen approaching from the south on the larboard tack with a moderate breeze from northwest-by-north and steered directly for the Spanish three-decker. At about ten o'clock, just as "Monarca" had got within little more than a mile of "Rayo", "Leviathan" fired a warning shot wide of "Monarca", to oblige her to drop anchor. The shot fell between "Monarca" and "Rayo". The latter, conceiving that it was probably intended for her, hauled down her colours, and was taken by HMS "Donegal", who anchored alongside and took off the prisoners. "Leviathan" resumed her pursuit of "Monarca", eventually catching up and forcing her to surrender. On boarding her, her British captors found that she was in a sinking state, and so removed the British prize crew, and nearly all of her original Spanish crew members. The nearly empty "Monarca" parted her cable and was wrecked during the night. Despite the efforts of her British prize crew, "Rayo" was driven onshore on 26 October and wrecked, with the loss of 25 men. The remainder of the prize crew were made prisoners by the Spanish.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: On balance, the allied counter-attack achieved little. In forcing the British to suspend their repairs to defend themselves, it influenced Collingwood's decision to sink or set fire to the most damaged of his remaining prizes. Cosmao retook two Spanish ships of the line, but it cost him one French and two Spanish vessels to do so. Fearing their loss, the British burnt or sank "Santísima Trinidad", "Argonauta", "San Antonio" and "Intrepide". Only four of the British prizes, the French "Swiftsure" and the Spanish "Bahama", "San Ildefonso" and "San Juan Nepomuceno" survived to be taken to Britain. After the end of the battle and storm only nine ships of the line were left in Cádiz.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Spanish military garrisons and civilians set out to rescue survivors from the numerous shipwrecks scattered along the Andalusian coast. British prize crews were captured and given good treatment. On 27 October, Collingwood offered the governor of Cádiz to put his Spanish wounded prisoners ashore and set them free. The governor and Gravina offered in exchange to release their British prisoners, who boarded the British fleet. The French would later join this humanitarian agreement.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The disparity in losses has been attributed by some historians less to Nelson's daring tactics than to the difference in fighting readiness of the two fleets. Nelson's fleet was made up of ships of the line which had spent a considerable amount of sea time during the months of blockades of French ports, whilst the French fleet had generally been at anchor in port. However, Villeneuve's fleet had just spent months at sea crossing the Atlantic twice, which supports the proposition that the main difference between the two fleets' combat effectiveness was the morale of the leaders. The daring tactics employed by Nelson were to ensure a strategically decisive result. The results vindicated his naval judgement.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: When Rosily arrived in Cádiz, he found only five French ships, rather than the 18 he was expecting. The surviving ships remained bottled up in Cádiz until 1808 when Napoleon invaded Spain. The French ships were then seized by the Spanish forces and put into service against France.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: HMS "Victory" made her way to Gibraltar for repairs, carrying Nelson's body. She put into Rosia Bay, Gibraltar and after emergency repairs were carried out, returned to Britain. Many of the injured crew were taken ashore at Gibraltar and treated in the Naval Hospital. Men who subsequently died from injuries sustained at the battle are buried in or near the Trafalgar Cemetery, at the south end of Main Street, Gibraltar.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: One Royal Marine officer was killed on board "Victory"; Captain Charles Adair. Royal Marine Lieutenant Lewis Buckle Reeve was seriously wounded and laid next to Nelson.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The battle took place the day after the Battle of Ulm, and Napoleon did not hear about it for weeks—the Grande Armée had left Boulogne to fight Britain's allies before they could combine their armies. He had tight control over the Paris media and kept the defeat a closely guarded secret for over a month, at which point newspapers proclaimed it to have been a tremendous victory. In a counter-propaganda move, a fabricated text declaring the battle a "spectacular victory" for the French and Spanish was published in "Herald" and attributed to "Le Moniteur Universel".


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Vice-Admiral Villeneuve was taken prisoner aboard his flagship and taken back to Britain. After his parole in 1806, he returned to France, where he was found dead in his inn room during a stop on the way to Paris, with six stab wounds in the chest from a dining knife. It was officially recorded that he had committed suicide.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Despite the British victory over the Franco-Spanish navies, Trafalgar had negligible impact on the remainder of the War of the Third Coalition. Less than two months later, Napoleon decisively defeated the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz, knocking Austria out of the war and forcing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Although Trafalgar meant France could no longer challenge Britain at sea, Napoleon proceeded to establish the Continental System in an attempt to deny Britain trade with the continent. The Napoleonic Wars continued for another ten years after Trafalgar.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Following the battle, the Royal Navy was never again seriously challenged by the French fleet in a large-scale engagement. Napoleon had already abandoned his plans of invasion before the battle and they were never revived. The battle did not mean, however, that the French naval challenge to Britain was over. First, as the French control over the continent expanded, Britain had to take active steps with the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807 and elsewhere in 1808 to prevent the ships of smaller European navies from falling into French hands. This effort was largely successful, but did not end the French threat as Napoleon instituted a large-scale shipbuilding programme that had produced a fleet of 80 ships of the line at the time of his fall from power in 1814, with more under construction. In comparison, Britain had 99 ships of the line in active commission in 1814, and this was close to the maximum that could be supported. Given a few more years, the French could have realised their plans to commission 150 ships of the line and again challenge the Royal Navy, compensating for the inferiority of their crews with sheer numbers. For almost 10 years after Trafalgar, the Royal Navy maintained a close blockade of French bases and anxiously observed the growth of the French fleet. In the end, Napoleon's Empire was destroyed by land before his ambitious naval buildup could be completed.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: The Royal Navy proceeded to dominate the sea until the Second World War. Although the victory at Trafalgar was typically given as the reason at the time, modern historical analyses suggest that relative economic strength was an important underlying cause of British naval mastery.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Nelson became – and remains – Britain's greatest naval war hero, and an inspiration to the Royal Navy, yet his unorthodox tactics were seldom emulated by later generations. The first monument to be erected in Britain to commemorate Nelson may be that raised on Glasgow Green in 1806, albeit possibly preceded by a monument at Taynuilt, near Oban in Scotland dated 1805, both also commemorating the many Scots crew and captains at the battle. The "Nelson Monument" on Glasgow Green was designed by David Hamilton and paid for by public subscription. Around the base are the names of his major victories: Aboukir (1798), Copenhagen (1801) and Trafalgar (1805). The Nelson Monument overlooking Portsmouth was built in 1807–08 with money subscribed by sailors and marines who served at Trafalgar. In 1808, Nelson's Pillar was erected by leading members of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy in Dublin to commemorate Nelson and his achievements (between 10% and 20% of the sailors at Trafalgar had been from Ireland), and remained until it was destroyed in a bombing by "Old IRA" members in 1966. Nelson's Monument in Edinburgh was built between 1807 and 1815 in the form of an upturned telescope, and in 1853 a time ball was added which still drops at noon GMT to give a time signal to ships in Leith and the Firth of Forth. In summer this coincides with the "one o'clock gun" being fired. The Britannia Monument in Great Yarmouth was raised by 1819. Nelson's Column, Montreal began public subscriptions soon after news of the victory at Trafalgar arrived; the column was completed in the autumn of 1809 and still stands in Place Jacques Cartier. A statue of Lord Nelson stood in Bridgetown, Barbados, in what was also once known as Trafalgar Square, from 1813 to 2020.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: London's Trafalgar Square was named in honour of Nelson's victory; at the centre of the square there is the Nelson's Column, with a statue of Nelson on top. It was finished in 1843.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: In 1905, there were events up and down the country to commemorate the centenary, although none were attended by any member of the Royal Family, apparently to avoid upsetting the French, with whom the United Kingdom had recently entered the "Entente cordiale". King Edward VII did support the "Nelson Centenary Memorial Fund" of the British and Foreign Sailors Society, which sold Trafalgar centenary souvenirs marked with the Royal cypher. A gala was held on 21 October at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of the fund, which included a specially commissioned film by Alfred John West entitled "Our Navy". The event ended with "God Save the King" and "La Marseillaise" The first performance of Sir Henry Wood's "Fantasia on British Sea Songs" occurred on the same day at a special Promenade Concert.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: In 2005 a series of events around the UK, part of the "Sea Britain" theme, marked the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar. The 200th anniversary of the battle was also commemorated on six occasions in Portsmouth during June and July, at St Paul's Cathedral (where Nelson is entombed), in Trafalgar Square in London in October ("T Square 200"), and across the UK.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: On 28 June, the Queen was involved in the largest Fleet Review in modern times in the Solent, in which 167 ships from 35 nations took part. The Queen inspected the international fleet from the Antarctic patrol ship HMS "Endurance". The fleet included six aircraft carriers (modern capital ships): "Charles De Gaulle", "Illustrious", "Invincible", "Ocean", "Príncipe de Asturias" and "Saipan". In the evening a symbolic re-enactment of the battle was staged with fireworks and various small ships playing parts in the battle.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: Lieutenant John Lapenotière's historic voyage in HMS "Pickle" bringing the news of the victory from the fleet to Falmouth and thence by post chaise to the Admiralty in London was commemorated by the inauguration of The Trafalgar Way and further highlighted by the New Trafalgar Dispatch celebrations from July to September in which an actor played the part of Lapenotière and re-enacted parts of the historic journey.


title: Battle of Trafalgar

text: On the actual anniversary day, 21 October, naval manoeuvres were conducted in Trafalgar Bay near Cádiz involving a combined fleet from Britain, Spain, and France. Many descendants of people present at the battle, including members of Nelson's family, were at the ceremony.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Jonathan David Good (born December 7, 1985) is an American professional wrestler and actor. He is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he performs under the ring name Jon Moxley. He also makes appearances for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). He became known for his tenure with WWE, where he performed under the ring name Dean Ambrose from 2011 to 2019.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Good made his professional wrestling debut in 2004, and competed under the Jon Moxley name in several independent promotions such as Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA), Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw), Full Impact Pro (FIP), Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW), and Dragon Gate USA (DGUSA). Upon signing with WWE in 2011, he was given the Dean Ambrose name and began competing in the company's developmental territories of Florida Championship Wrestling and NXT, before joining the main roster in November 2012 as a member of The Shield alongside Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. Ambrose won the WWE United States Championship, his first championship in WWE, in May 2013; his 351-day reign became the longest United States Championship reign since the title came under WWE's ownership. After widespread success, The Shield split in June 2014. Ambrose went on to win the WWE Championship once, the WWE Intercontinental Championship three times, and the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship twice (both times with Rollins), which made him WWE's 27th Triple Crown Champion and 16th Grand Slam Champion. He also won the Money in the Bank ladder match in 2016.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Good left WWE after his contract expired in April 2019, subsequently reverting to his Jon Moxley character and debuting for AEW the following month at their inaugural event, Double or Nothing. He also started working in NJPW and won the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship in his NJPW debut match in January 2020, becoming the only person thus far to have held WWE's and IWGP's United States championships. He would briefly vacate the title but quickly won it back a second time, and would set a record for the longest reign in the title's history. He also won the AEW World Championship in February of that year, making him the first person to hold championships in AEW and NJPW simultaneously. He would go on to win the AEW World Championship twice more in 2022, setting records for the most world championship wins and longest cumulative reigns in AEW history. All totaled between WWE, AEW, and NJPW, he has held 12 total championships (including four world titles and three U.S. titles).


title: Jon Moxley

text: Regarded as one of the best wrestlers in the world and noted for his deranged and mentally unstable onscreen character, Good has also been recognized for his popularity with audiences; he won the "Pro Wrestling Illustrated" ("PWI") award for Most Popular Wrestler of the Year in 2014 and 2015, and was named Wrestler of the Year by "Sports Illustrated" in 2019. He also topped the "PWI 500" list of the top 500 wrestlers in the world in 2020. Outside of wrestling, he starred in the action film "" (2015) and the sports action film "" (2020).


title: Jon Moxley

text: Jonathan David Good was born in Cincinnati on December 7, 1985. He grew up in Cincinnati's East End, which he said was so deprived that shoplifting was a daily occurrence for everybody he knew because they never had any money. An avid wrestling fan who idolized Bret Hart, he used wrestling as an escape from his rough upbringing by watching videos and reading stories about wrestling's earlier days. He attended Amelia High School in nearby Batavia, but dropped out one year after beginning to train as a wrestler. He supported himself by working minimum-wage jobs in factories, restaurants, and warehouses, but was constantly getting fired because he would skip work if he was booked to wrestle a match that clashed with his job; however, he continued to do so because he knew he "could always find another minimum-wage job". He often used drugs such as cocaine as a teenager, during which time he was also arrested multiple times for shoplifting. He has said that he would have most likely become a forest firefighter if he did not pursue wrestling.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Good began working for Les Thatcher in the Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA) promotion as a teenager by selling popcorn and setting up the ring. He began training to become a professional wrestler at the age of 18 under the teaching of Thatcher and HWA wrestler Cody Hawk. He made his debut in 2004 under the ring name Jon Moxley. The following year, Moxley won the HWA Tag Team Championship twice, with Jimmy Turner and Ric Byrne respectively. He captured the HWA Heavyweight Championship twice in 2006 by defeating Pepper Parks on both occasions but lost the title to Chad Collyer and Brian Jennings respectively. From mid-2007 to early 2010, Moxley continued to work in the tag team division and held the HWA tag titles once with his trainer Cody Hawk and twice with King Vu. He won the HWA Heavyweight Championship for the third time from Aaron Williams in January 2010, before losing it to Gerome Phillips six months later.


title: Jon Moxley

text: In September 2006, Moxley teamed with Hade Vansen to win the IWA World Tag Team Championship in the Puerto Rico based International Wrestling Association. They lost the titles to Chicano and Jeff Jeffrey in November, ending their reign at 69 days. Moxley also wrestled several dark matches for Ring of Honor (ROH) between 2007 and 2009. Moxley started working for Dragon Gate USA (DGUSA) in late 2009. He made his first televised appearance in March, where he defeated Tommy Dreamer in a hardcore match taped for the Mercury Rising pay-per-view. At the Uprising event in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Moxley suffered a legitimate injury where his left nipple was nearly severed during a match with Jimmy Jacobs. His last match in DGUSA was against Homicide in January 2011, which Moxley won.


title: Jon Moxley

text: At Full Impact Pro's (FIP) Southern Stampede event on April 17, 2010, Moxley defeated Roderick Strong to win the vacant FIP World Heavyweight Championship. He held the title for 441 days before relinquishing it in July 2011, due to his signing with WWE. Moxley also won Combat Zone Wrestling's CZW World Heavyweight Championship twice in 2010 by defeating B-Boy and Nick Gage, respectively.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Good signed a developmental deal with WWE in April 2011 and joined its developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) under the name Dean Ambrose. Prior to his signing, Good wrestled three try-out matches for WWE in 2006 and 2007.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Ambrose made his televised debut on the July 3 episode of "FCW", portraying a villainous character and challenging FCW Jack Brisco 15 Champion Seth Rollins. The following month, Ambrose and Rollins had a 20-minute non-title Iron Man match; the match ended in a draw with neither man scoring a fall. A 30-minute rematch, in which the title was on the line, took place in September which Rollins won through sudden death rules. Ambrose beat Rollins in a non-title match in the first round of a tournament to crown the new FCW Florida Heavyweight Champion. However, Ambrose was unsuccessful in the tournament final against Leo Kruger. Ambrose later cost Rollins his FCW 15 Championship by attacking Damien Sandow during his title match with Rollins, causing a disqualification in the deciding fall. Ambrose later unsuccessfully challenged Sandow for the championship. At an FCW house show on October 21, Ambrose challenged WWE wrestler CM Punk, who was making a guest appearance, to a match in which Ambrose was defeated. Punk would later praise Ambrose after the match.


title: Jon Moxley

text: Ambrose then began a feud with William Regal after he targeted Regal in an unprovoked attack. They would wrestle on the November 7 episode of "FCW", with Regal winning. For the next year, Ambrose would obsessively request for another match with Regal. On December 7, Ambrose competed at tapings for an unaired pilot for "WWE NXT" under the working title "Full Sail Ahead" at Full Sail University, where he was defeated by Leo Kruger.


title: Jon Moxley

text: In March 2012, Ambrose had a confrontation with veteran hardcore wrestler Mick Foley, claiming that Foley needed to be held accountable for creating a generation of imitators. Ambrose continued to antagonize Foley through Twitter. According to Ambrose, the angle was supposed to culminate in a match between the two, but this never came to fruition due to Foley not being medically allowed to wrestle. Instead, the rivalry was scrapped and Ambrose remained in WWE's developmental system. He competed in a dark match at the first tapings of "NXT" on May 17, in a loss to Xavier Woods. On an episode of "FCW" in June, Ambrose challenged Rollins for the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship but lost. Almost a year after their first match, Ambrose and Regal rematched on the final episode of "FCW" on July 15. The match would conclude in a no contest after Ambrose repeatedly kneed Regal's head into a ring turnbuckle, causing Regal to bleed from the ear.


title: Jon Moxley

text: On November 18, 2012, Dean Ambrose made his WWE main roster debut at the Survivor Series pay-per-view event alongside Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, as they delivered a triple powerbomb through an announce table to Ryback during the triple threat main event for the WWE Championship, allowing CM Punk to pin John Cena and retain the title. The trio declared themselves The Shield, vowed to rally against "injustice", and denied working for Punk; however, they routinely emerged from the crowd to attack Punk's opponents, including Ryback and the WWE Tag Team Champions Team Hell No (Daniel Bryan and Kane), thus establishing themselves as villains. This led to a six-man Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match being set up for the pay-per-view event on December 16, where The Shield defeated Ryback and Team Hell No in their debut match. They continued to aid Punk after TLC, both on "Raw" and at the 2013 Royal Rumble. The night after the Royal Rumble, it was revealed that Punk and his manager Paul Heyman had been paying The Shield to work for them all along. The Shield then quietly ended their association with Punk.


title: Jon Moxley

text: At Elimination Chamber in February, The Shield defeated Ryback, John Cena, and Sheamus. At WrestleMania 29 in April, The Shield won their first WrestleMania match against Sheamus, Randy Orton and Big Show. Ambrose made his singles debut against The Undertaker on the April 26 episode of "SmackDown", which he lost by submission. On the May 13 episode of "Raw", The Shield's undefeated streak as a team ended in a disqualification loss against WWE Champion John Cena and Team Hell No. At Extreme Rules, Ambrose won the United States Championship by defeating Kofi Kingston. He would successfully defend the title in the following weeks with the help of Reigns and Rollins. On the June 14 episode of "SmackDown", The Shield was given their first decisive loss, against Randy Orton and Team Hell No, when Daniel Bryan made Rollins submit. Two days later, Ambrose made his first pay-per-view defense of the United States Championship at Payback, where he defeated Kane by countout. The following month at Money in the Bank, he competed in the World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank ladder match but failed to win despite interference from Reigns and Rollins. In August, The Shield allied themselves with Triple H and joined his group The Authority.