Since the early modern period, naval power has relied on large ships with immense firepower. From the Battle of Lepanto (1571), which checked the Ottoman advance in the Mediterranean, to the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), which confirmed British naval supremacy over Napoleon, the ability to destroy enemy vessels with cannon fire remained largely the same.
These ships had been wooden and powered by sails. In the nineteenth century, however, naval technology developed rapidly, first with the use of steam power and second with the development of heavily armoured ‘iron-clad’ ships. These were the first to be called ‘Battleships’ and by the early twentieth century they were popularly referred to as ‘dreadnoughts’, after HMS Dreadnought (launched in 1906).
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