The Armada Of The Spanish Armada

Zack Lightman is a small town gamer in the book Armada By Ernest Cline. Zack is known around the world for being one of the highest ranking players in a popular video game called Armada. As it turns out Armada is a military simulator used by the government to recruit people to fight in a war against extraterrestrial creatures. Now Zack must overcome the death of his father and anger issues to embark on a journey to save the earth from the alien invaders, and stop the war.

With the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588, Spain began a steady decline to a second rate power. Consequently shifting their original goal of exploring to maintaining or colonizing what lands they still possess.

In addition, there were many domestic and foreign policies Philip II created during his rule in power. One policy he created was against the Muslims. As of the year that he created the policy, he lost half of the strength of his navy from losing wars with the Turkish Empire, as talked about before ("Philip II"). While attempting to repair his navy back to its full strength once again, the Muslim pirates attacked Spain. Prisoners were taken, but King Philip was able to bring back his navy, but soon enough, the Turks attacked again and it was looking very poor for Spain at this point ("Good King Philip?"). After many more small wars, both sides were left with very little military presence, so Spain and France signed a truce. Philip II also created a two-fold policy: “He sent ministers to Portugal to build up support for him being king which would have meant Spain absorbing Portugal into her kingdom” (Trueman). He also created a very large army, also stated above. The noblemen of Portugal supported Philip II, and also clearly hoped to get rewards for their support. Nearly all of the problems Philip II faced were results of his policies and problems that were soon to be fixed.

The cold, stormy night was all too familiar to the English. A devious plan by Spain's king, Philip II, was being formed to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England and rid the world of the English "heretics."1 It was a story of deception, false judgments, and poor planning. What was one king's dream turned into his country's nightmare. While the Spanish had bad leaders, the English had good ones. The Spanish had bigger, but slower ships, while the English had smaller and faster ships. The English knew the weather conditions and how to prepare for them, while the Spanish thought it would not be a problem. The English entered the battle in a calm manner, while the Spanish were overconfident. All of these

Spain under King Philip the second, was the most powerful nation in Europe at the time and sought to weaken Elizabeth’s reign and have her replaced. So, for the Queen to keep her power and avoid open conflict with Spain, England engaged in an “aggressive para-naval policy towards Spain; and sought to counter Spanish expansion in the New World. Privateering expeditions were under the guise of seeking new channels for English trade, but in fact the expeditions mainly attacked Spanish colonies in the New World. The English privateer John Hawkins, was one of the first hired and supported by England to attack Spanish colonies and trading vessels. Hawkins was the first Englishman to trade slaves in the New World, however he employed “warlike” methods of forcing trade and engaged a and defeated a Spanish fleet in the harbor of Vera Cruz. Another famous privateer who was utilized by the English government was Sir Francis Drake. Drake obtained a privateering commission from Queen Elizabeth in 1570, to strike at Spanish trading vessels and port cities. In the years that followed, he sacked the Spanish towns of Nombre de Dios and Panama, which in the process he captured a Spanish sliver mule train. Under Elizabeth's orders, Drake sent sail on December. 13, 1577, where he sought to raid Spain's Pacific colonies he knew were hardly defended. He circumnavigated the globe in the process and

In 1585 he settled about 100 men on Roanoke Island, but they did not settle and returned a year later. In 1587 he sent another group to settle that included a number of women and children. A supply ship was sent to the settlers but was delayed by the attack of the Spanish Armada on England in 1588. Help did not arrive until 1590, but it was too late and there was no one to be found. The attack of the Spanish Armada was spurred by King Phillip the 2nd. His motives were religious as England seemed committed to Protestantism as well as for economic and political reasons. An English fleet of 197 ships were able to conquer the invasion and led to Spain no longer being able to prevent the English from settling in the New World.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest lasting battle of World War II. The Battle was to control the Atlantic Shipping Lanes and lasted from September 3rd 1939 to May 8th 1945, mainly in The Atlantic Ocean, but later spread to the United States and The Caribbean Sea. The Battle of the Atlantic was originally fought by Britain and Canada against Germany until 1940 when the Italians joined the German side. In 1941 the United States joined Britain and Canada in the battle, leading to the defeat of Germany. A significant even that lead up to The Battle of the Atlantic was when U-30 (U-boat 30) attacked Athenia, the passenger liner, a British auxiliary cruiser, within just hours of the British declaring war on Germany, killing 112 civilians that were aboard. These ships were the ones the submarines were told not to attack by The German Navy. This is what some say was the beginning of The Battle of the Atlantic. The Germans were also humiliated from World War One and felt they had not deserved to lose and have the harsh treatment put upon them, as outlined in The Treaty of Versailles.

Because Spain needed money, Philip raised taxes on the Netherlands. He also tried to ruin Protestantism. People were angry and came to Catholic churches to protest. Philip sent an army to punish the mobs of people, which resulted in one thousand, five hundred Protestants murdered. In addition, Philip was a ruler with great power that did what he had to for his country.

The first of these conflicts occurred right after Charles’ ascendance to the throne between England and Spain and was in large part the result of a failed marriage treaty between Catholic Spain and Protestant England that would have married Charles to the Spanish Infanta.4 Charles had been tricked into a treaty that would have given Catholics increased rights in Protestant England, a provision that would have assuredly angered the people of England.5 In addition, the first Parliament of Charles’ reign passed two measures that doomed this conflict. First, it only granted Charles the right to collect customs duties for one year, instead of for life.6 Secondly, Parliament gave Charles only about a fourth of the money that he needed to adequately fund the war. However, Charles and Buckingham believed that if the army could loot a port and intercept the goods coming from the Spanish colonies in America, the treasury could be stocked up again. So despite the lack of funding, Charles chose to raise an army to set out for the Spanish port of Cadiz.7 However, the army was inadequately supplied with capable soldiers, ships, and provisions. “Most of the soldiers in this army were rogues

16.Philip II- King of Spaniards and Portuguese; under his reign the Spanish empire reach its peak of influence through the revolt of the Netherlands wasn’t surpressed and they lost the “Invincible Armada” in an attempt to invade England.

There were many factors that caused such an attack. England was a Protestant country, and Spain was devoutly Catholic. The Spanish thought Queen Elizabeth and her Protestant beliefs had to be stopped at all costs. In 1587, Elizabeth had Mary, Queen of Scots, executed. Mary and Philip II were both allies and fellow Catholics, and she had offered the throne of England to him if she were to ever obtain it. After her execution, Philip felt it was his religious duty to make sure no more Catholics were persecuted in England. Not only was England Protestant, but they were also assisting Protestant rebels in the Spanish Netherlands, which “consisted of modern day Holland and Belgium”. Philip II ruled the Netherlands as a Spanish colony, and he wanted them to be Catholic like the mother country. Mainly, Holland wished to be independent from Spanish rule because they did not like

As the first voyage started in 1584, two brothers Humphrey Gilbert and Walter Raleigh had compassions of exploring colonization and exploiting further progress to enhance their nation. In 1578, Queen Elizabeth decided to search the unclaimed parts of North America in order to advance her naval power. At this point, Queen Elizabeth afraid of having a war with Catholic Spain. Queen Elizabeth couldn’t run from the inevitable war, she circumnavigated around the American coast to fit with her tactics

Between the years of 1535 and 1547, some sixty-six Spanish ships were captured by French corsairs (Lane 19). Shortly after in the 1550’s, the Spanish came to regret their passive defense strategy when French corsairs made their most punishing raids ever on the Spanish West Indies. They descended on colonies like Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, and caused heavy destruction that they never really recovered from. Finally in the early 1560’s, Spain was forced to react with expensive long-term defenses. Since the Spanish waited so long to do so they not only lost wealth because of what was captured, but now they also had to spend money to protect what was left.

Since the first humans picked up rocks and killed each other, war has grown and changed, going from a way to solve small disputes to a massive enterprise involving all of a country’s resources. One example of such a war would have to be the one between Spain and England in the 1500’s. What started as a mere religious conflict soon became much more, with the full naval might of the two countries facing off. It culminated in a huge battle between the massive Spanish Armada and the much smaller English fleet. With superior strategy, ships, and confidence, the English managed to not only fend off the Spanish but handily defeat them, preventing what could have been a huge invasion and disaster. Queen Elizabeth herself came to rally the troops, giving them the confidence to triumph over the Spanish (Kallen, 2013). It is apparent that this battle was a major battle and turning point in history. If the Spanish had won, history would be completely different. It is for this reason that is can be considered a major turning point in history.

With this victory Phillip gained some control over the Mediterranean and his naval dominance was at its peak. Phillip also had control over the Spanish Netherlands which were another important source of wealth. Phillip II’s high tax in the Netherland’s trading system brought upon rebellions which Phillip was unable to shut down easily. In the end only some parts of The Netherlands remained catholic and loyal to Phillip II. Lastly Since there was an alliance between the rebelling Netherlands and England; Phillip planed revenge on England on 1587 not only for revenge but also for hopes of making it catholic once more. To activate his revenge, Phillip gathered a large fleet also known as the “Great Armada” and sent it towards England. Everyone had expected a victory from Phillip II but as the large fleet headed for England it ended up in the middle of a storm which shipwrecked a large portion of the fleet. To Phillips surprise his fleet was weakened furthermore by England’s strategic naval attack using fire ships. Lastly, since Phillip was a pure catholic like his father. He held on to the inquisition policy which targeted mainly Protestants like Calvinists. It was a mistake because it caused uneasiness between Catholicism and Protestantism in Spain. In conclusion Phillip II of Spain not only caused an economic depression for his nation but he destroyed its naval force, was unable to efficiently suppress uprisings in the