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Spain led the Holy League to defeat the Ottoman Turkish Navy at the Battle of Lepanto near Corinth, Greece, in 1571. Hilaire Belloc wrote in The Great Heresies (1938): "This violent Mohammedan pressure on Christendom from the East made a bid for success by sea as well as by land. ... The last great Turkish organization working now from the conquered capital of Constantinople, proposed to cross the Adriatic, to attack Italy by sea and ultimately to recover all that had been lost in the Western Mediterranean. ... There was one critical moment when it looked as though the scheme...

Elizabeth I- Born: 7 September 1533 - Birthplace: Greenwich, England - Died: 24 March 1603 Best Known As: "The Virgin Queen" of England, 1558-1603 The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth succeeded Mary I in 1558. Dedicated to her position as ruler, Elizabeth fought off rivals (such as heir to the throne Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned for 19 years and executed in 1587) and expanded England's power overseas, eventually succeeding in defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588. Her nearly 45-year reign is considered one of England's high points: it featured luminaries such as Sir Walter Raleigh,...

Over the course of his 30-year journey, Thompson has written five books, all self-published, detailing what he believes to be conclusive evidence that, long before 1492, the Americas were explored repeatedly -- by the ancient Chinese, Venetians, Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, Irish, English and who-knows-who-else. He argues, for example, that a Chinese admiral named Zheng He, commanding a fleet of Chinese junks in the early 1400s, explored the coasts of the Americas. He believes that Marco Polo sailed with the Chinese into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and perhaps into Puget Sound in the 13th century. He is convinced that...

The Press Democrat: Print a Story http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/14drake_b1.html © The Press Democrat. For copyright information visit our User Agreement page at http://www.pressdemocrat.com/services/agreement.html Historians find source of Drake hoax Team dedicates 11 years of research into uncovering identities of brass plate creators February 14, 2003By BOB NORBERG THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Researchers say they have solved the mystery surrounding a phony brass plate found in Greenbrae and attributed to Sir Francis Drake, an enduring hoax that added to the debate over where the 16th-century explorer really landed. "We knew from testing that the plate is a forgery," said Ed Von der Porten...

'Long-lost treasure' has a painful punch-line February 17 2003 at 10:16AM San Francisco - It turns out that one of the American West's enduring mysteries - a tale of 16th century sea-borne explorers and a perplexing brass plaque - was a 1930s joke-gone-wrong sprung on an influential University of California professor by a group of friends. Historians believed the hoax for decades, but tests in the late 1970s proved that the small brass plate with old English inscriptions was not in fact the one left by Sir Francis Drake when he sheltered just north of San Francisco in 1579. One...

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rejected a proposal to extend the lease of a popular oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore on Thursday, effectively ending more than a century of shellfish production on the 1,100 acres where Europeans first stepped foot in California. The decision will allow the National Park Service to turn the picturesque bay where Sir Francis Drake landed more than 400 years ago into California's first federally designated marine wilderness area. Salazar made his decision a day before the 40-year lease allowing Drakes Bay Oyster Co., to harvest shellfish in the estuary expires and one week...

His burial at sea in full armour and in a lead casket was designed to ensure that no one – but especially the Spanish – would find his body. Now, more than 400 years after Sir Francis Drake's death in the Caribbean, the great seafarer's watery grave may be close to being discovered. A team of treasure hunters led by an American former basketball team owner claims to have discovered two ships from Drake's fleet lying on the seabed off the coast of Panama. The 195-ton Elizabeth and 50-ton Delight were scuttled shortly after the naval hero's death from dysentery,...