Seapower to Superpower: The Story of Global Supremacy

This hour covers the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the wars between the Dutch and the English for control of world trade.

This episode is concerned primarily with the battles between France, the greatest land power, and Britain, the greatest seapower, for world dominance.

Between 1815 and 1865, Great Britain adds territory around the world. Britain achieves victory at Jutland in World War I but is exhausted financially after the struggle.

This episode marks the transfer of power midway through WWII from the Royal Navy to the US Navy and the growth of two 20th-century weapons: the submarine and the aircraft carrier.

Naval strategists concluded that the advantage of seapower would be transferred to a land-based empire. By 1946, the USSR arrived, and with it, atomic power and satellites.