UNIT 6 - Maritime History

In England no town is more than 170km from the sea. So it's no surprise than Britain has a very important history of ships and the sea. The British Navy was the bigget navy in the wold at one time. now its smaller, but many other ships are still used for importing and exporting goods and for talking people on business or holiday.

In Liverpool there is a grat museum of maritime history. its got several ships in the docks outside. inside it shows what it was like to be on some of the ships.

Between 1930 and d1930 more than nine million people from all over Europe left from the port of Liverpool to start a new life in America or Australia. They crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool or Southampton to New Uork in five or six days. The most famous ship was probably the TITANIC. It sank in 1912 and over 1,500 people drowned. It was the sorst disaster in maritime hostory. You probably know aboaut it from one of the most expencive films ever made - Tiitanic

One of the most famous shipping companies is Cunard. It's got the world's biggest cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, it cresses the Atlantic from Southampton to New York. It still takes five or six days but some people prefer that to five or six hours in an aeroplane.

At the Southampton Container Terminal they unloasd more than one and a half million containers each year.