On Sunday 7 October 1571 the fleet of the Holy League, an alliance of Spain, Venice and the Papacy under Don John of Austria, met the Ottoman fleet of Ali Pasha at the mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto. Ali Pasha was killed and his flagship taken, and eleven days later the allies divided 117 captured galleys among themselves. Venetian, Spanish and later accounts give very different numbers of ships and dead, so each figure below comes with its source. On 7 October 1780 frontier militia surrounded Major Patrick Ferguson's Loyalists on Kings Mountain in South Carolina; in about an hour Ferguson was dead and his men had surrendered.
The Battle of Lepanto, 1571: the last galley war
7 October 1571 · 455 years ago
The Holy League won at Lepanto on 7 October 1571, taking or sinking some 170 Ottoman galleys in the last great galley battle. Cervantes and the aftermath.
Read the full story of The Battle of Lepanto, 1571: the last galley war ›The Battle of Kings Mountain, 1780: the turn of the tide in the South
7 October 1780 · 246 years ago
At Kings Mountain on 7 October 1780, Patriot frontier militia known as the Overmountain Men surrounded and destroyed a Loyalist force under Major Patrick Ferguson, the only man present who was not American-born. Ferguson was killed and most of his command killed or captured in about an hour.
Read the full story of The Battle of Kings Mountain, 1780: the turn of the tide in the South ›Battle of Latakia, 1973: the first missile boat battle
7 October 1973 · 53 years ago
Off the Syrian port of Latakia, Israeli missile boats fought Syrian naval units in the first hours of the Yom Kippur War. It was the first naval battle between missile boats firing anti-ship missiles and the first with electronic deception, and Israel sank several Syrian vessels.
Read the full story of Battle of Latakia, 1973: the first missile boat battle ›A league for Cyprus
In 1570 the Ottoman fleet besieged the fortresses of Venetian Cyprus, Camillo Manfroni writes in the Enciclopedia Italiana. By his account Pope Pius V pressed until, in May 1571, Spain, the Holy See and Venice concluded the Holy League. Its captain general was Don John of Austria, whom Royal Museums Greenwich calls the illegitimate half-brother of Philip II of Spain. Marcantonio Colonna commanded for the Pope and Sebastiano Venier for Venice. On 4 October, at Fiscardo on Cephalonia, the fleet learned that Famagusta, the last Venetian stronghold on Cyprus, had fallen. Venier wrote that the news took from him "all hope of ever recovering that kingdom" (our translation).1
Two fleets, many counts
Manfroni cites Don John's own count: 208 galleys, 6 galleasses and 24 ships with about 26,000 fighting men. A Spanish relación that reached Philip II at the Escorial on 8 November counts 203 galleys and 6 galleasses, and more than 22,000 infantry besides the galley crews. Giuseppe Gullino gives over 200 galleys and 30,000 fighting men.2
For the Ottomans the relación gives 225 galleys and 60 galliots and other smaller vessels, with more than 25,000 fighting men. Francisco de Murillo, writing from the fleet on 9 October, had heard of 260 galleys.3
