How Lord Nelson met his death

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 13:05

ADMIRAL Lord Nelson's most famous engagement, at Cape Trafalgar, saved Britain from threat of invasion by Napoleon, but it would famously be his last.

Struck by a French sniper's bullet, he died of his wounds on the first day of battle, 21 October, 1805.

His body was transported back to Britain preserved in a barrel of brandy.

His outnumbered British fleet defeated the combined fleets of France and Spain.

The British fleet had only 27 ships against 33 enemy ships. The Spanish and French fleets also had 474 more guns and 8,124 more men.

After the battle, the Royal Navy remained unchallenged as the world's foremost naval power until the rise of Imperial Germany prior to the First World War, 100 years later.

In the aftermath of Trafalgar, Nelson became, and remains to this day, Britain's greatest naval hero.

Monuments were erected in his honour across Britain and around the world, the first being raised on Glasgow Green a year after his death. Nelson's Pillar, in Dublin, was erected in 1808 but destroyed by the IRA in 1966.

The most famous, Nelson's Monument in Trafalgar Square, was built between 1840 and 1843.