| c. 7000 BC | Greece | Navigation of the open sea begins. Greek seafarers ship obsidian 121 km/75 mi from the island of Melos to the Franchthi cave on the gulf of Argolis in Greece. |
| c. 6000 BC | Egypt | Rock drawings in Egypt indicate the use of relatively large ships in the eastern Mediterranean and on the Nile. Constructed out of bundles of reeds, the ends of the ships are bound together and bent upward to form the bow and the stern giving the keel-less ship a crescent-shaped profile. |
| c. 700 BC | Greece | The Greeks develop the bireme, a galley about 24 m/80 ft long with two banks of oars staggered on either side of the vessel. |
| c. 500 BC | Greece | The Greeks introduce the trireme, a galley about 45 m/150 ft long and 6 m/20 ft wide with three banks of oars. The oars are worked from an outrigger that extends down the length of the hull, and the ship carries about 200 people, mostly oarsmen. It becomes the model warship for both the Greeks and the Romans. |
| c. 475 BC | Italy | The two-masted sailing ship, with the forward sail being the smaller, is depicted on the wall of an Etruscan tomb. |
| 1180 | Europe | The earliest European reference to a sternpost rudder is recorded. The increasing use of sails means that rudders are needed for steering, and oar-powered boats with steering oars become redundant. |
| c. 1250 | world | The bowsprit is introduced on ships, allowing the mainsail to be extended, and letting the vessel sail closer to the wind. |
| c. 1295 | Italy | Venetian shipwrights develop the huge, oar-powered boats known as ‘great galleys’, which are up to 50 metres long. These will allow Venetian merchants to dominate Europe. |
| 1488 | England | The flagship of King Henry VII's English navy, the Great Harry, is launched. It is the first four-masted English vessel. |
| 1601 | England | Captain James Lancaster of the East India Company provides his crew with lemon juice and citrus fruits, avoiding an outbreak of scurvy, the deficiency disease that devastates the crews of other ships in his trade mission. |
| 1757 | UK | Scottish sailor John Campbell invents the sextant – a modification of the marine quadrant that makes measuring angular separations to determine a ship's position easier. |
| 1762 | England | English inventor John Harrison claims the Board of Longitude's prize for an accurate chronometer for use at sea; it can determine the longitude to within 5.5 m/18 ft (he is paid £20,000 in 1773). |
| May 1801 | USA | US inventor Robert Fulton completes the submarine Nautilus. It has enough air for four passengers for three hours and is driven by a hand-turned propeller while submerged, and a collapsible mast and sail while on the surface. Despite sinking several ships neither the British nor the French support it. |
| 1802 | UK | Scottish engineer William Symington launches the world's first paddlewheel steamer, the Charlotte Dundas, which acts as a tug on the Forth and Clyde Canal. The 17-m/56-ft long steam-driven vessel runs at 13 kph/8 mph and uses a piston rod connected directly to the crankshaft. |
| 17–18 August 1807 | USA | US engineer Robert Fulton's paddleboat Steamboat, the first commercial paddle steamer, makes a 240 km/150 mi trial run on the Hudson River from Albany to New York City. Completed in 32 hours (sailing ships take 4 days), averaging 7.6 kph/4.7 mph, it is equipped with side paddles and a Boulton and Watt engine. The following year it is refurbished and renamed the Clermont and begins to ply the Hudson River. |
| 8 April 1838 | UK | English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ship Great Western is launched. The largest ship in the world (65m/212 ft long), and the first steamship built specifically for oceanic service, it crosses the Atlantic in half the time (15 days) sailing ships take. |
| 19 July 1843 | England | English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ship Great Britain is launched at Bristol, England. It is the world's largest ship (98 m/322ft long; weighing 3,332 tonnes/3,270 tons), with six masts and a screw propeller, and becomes the first propeller-driven iron ship to cross the Atlantic. It sets a pattern for ocean liners for the rest of the century. |
| 1859 | France | The Gloire, the first ironclad battleship, is launched in France. Designed by French naval architect Stanislas-Henri-Laurent Dupuy de Lôme, its iron plates, 11 cm/4.5 in and 12 cm/4.6 in thick, are attached to the outside of a 66 cm/26 in thick wooden hull. |
| 30 January 1862 | Sweden, USA | The Swedish-born US engineer John Ericsson's ironclad warship Monitor is launched. Steam-powered and propeller-driven, and with an armoured revolving gun turret, its design sets the pattern for future warships. |
| 1870 | Egypt, UK | The Suez Canal in Egypt is used by 436,000 tons of shipping; 71% of the traffic is British shipping. |
| 1880 | Egypt, UK | The Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea is used by 4,344,000 tons of shipping, 70 % of which is British. |
| 1886 | Germany | The first oil tanker, the 90 m/300ft long German ship Gluckhauf, is launched. Oil is carried in tanks located along the hull. Previously, oil was transported in barrels on regular merchant ships. By 1900 99% of oil carried by sea is carried in such ships. |
| 1886 | UK | The British submarine Nautilus is launched. The first electric-powered submarine, it uses two electric 50 horsepower motors powered by a 100 cell storage battery to achieve a speed of 6 knots. The need for frequent battery recharges limits its range to 130 km/80 mi. |
| 1897 | UK | English engineer Charles Parsons fits a steam turbine to the boat Turbania, which achieves a speed of 34.5 knots, making it the fastest boat of the time. It is the first time a steam turbine has been applied to propel a ship. Parsons demonstrates the boat to a crowd of thousands at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Review of the Fleet, by unexpectedly weaving in and out of the British fleet. |
| 1898 | USA | The submarine Argonaut travels 1,280 km/800 mi from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York City. It is the first time a submarine has navigated extensively in the open ocean. |
| 10 February 1906 | United Kingdom | The British battleship HMS Dreadnought is launched at Portsmouth, England. Its massive armament (10 30 cm/12 in guns and 24 12-pounder guns) makes all other warships obsolete and its name becomes a generic term for battleships with large-calibre armament. |
| 14–15 April 1912 | | The British luxury liner Titanic, carrying 2,224 people on its maiden transatlantic voyage, hits an iceberg 640 km/400 mi off the coast of Newfoundland and sinks causing the deaths of 1,513. One of the largest ships afloat (269 m/882 ft) it has a double-hulled bottom and is considered unsinkable. The accident leads to the first international convention for safety at sea, held in London, England, the following year, which draws up safety standards. |
| September 1918 | United Kingdom | The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier, the Argus. A converted merchant ship, it has a flight deck measuring 170.7 m/560 ft and a hangar that can house 20 aeroplanes. |
| 1954 | USA | US entrepreneur Malcolm Maclean initiates the use of containers to ship goods between New York City and Houston, Texas. The idea catches on rapidly throughout the world. |
| 1955 | world | Container ships begin to appear, revolutionizing the shipping industry by reducing the need for longshoremen. Their hulls are divided into compartments that accommodate truck containers, which can be loaded and unloaded far faster than traditional cargo ships. The first container ships are converted tankers. |
| 1 September 1985 | USA | The wreck of the Titanic, which sank in 1912, is discovered by US entrepreneur Robert Ballard using the Argo, a remote-controlled robot equipped with video cameras. |
| 19 August 2005 | Finland | The 158,000-ton cruise liner Freedom of the Seas is launched in Finland, taking over from the Queen Mary 2 as the world's largest passenger ship. |
