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The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic maritime states, decisively defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece. The Ottoman forces sailing westwards from their naval station in Lepanto (Turkish: İnebahtı; Greek: Ναύπακτος or Έπαχτος Naupaktos or Épahtos) met the Holy League forces, which had come from Messina.<br/><br/> The Victory of the Holy League prevented the Mediterranean Sea from becoming an uncontested highway for Muslim forces, protected Italy from a major Ottoman invasion, and prevented the Ottomans from advancing further into the southern flank of Europe. Lepanto was the last major naval battle in the Mediterranean fought entirely between galleys, and has been assigned great symbolic importance.
The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic maritime states, decisively defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece. The Ottoman forces sailing westwards from their naval station in Lepanto (Turkish: İnebahtı; Greek: Ναύπακτος or Έπαχτος Naupaktos or Épahtos) met the Holy League forces, which had come from Messina.<br/><br/> The Victory of the Holy League prevented the Mediterranean Sea from becoming an uncontested highway for Muslim forces, protected Italy from a major Ottoman invasion, and prevented the Ottomans from advancing further into the southern flank of Europe. Lepanto was the last major naval battle in the Mediterranean fought entirely between galleys, and has been assigned great symbolic importance.
Ali Pasha was commander-in-chief of the Ottoman naval forces at the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571. Selim had entrusted him with one of the most precious possessions of the Ottoman Sultans, the great 'Banner of the Caliphs', a huge green banner heavily embroidered with texts from the Qur'an and with the name of Allah emblazoned upon it 28,900 times in golden letters. It was intended to provide an incentive for him and his men to do their best in battle.<br/><br/> Still quite young, like his counterpart Don Juan, he was more of a land soldier than a naval tactician, and his failure to keep his lines together and keep his individual squadrons from charging like cavalry units in a land battle allowed the Christian forces to penetrate his battle line in various places and to surround and defeat the isolated ships.<br/><br/> He was also somewhat of a firebrand and almost immediately sought the direct confrontation with his opposite number. His flagship, the galley Sultana, battled head-to-head with Don Juan's flagship La Real, was boarded and, after about one hour of bloody fighting, with reinforcements being provided to both sides by other galleys in their respective fleets, was captured.<br/><br/> Ali Pasha died at the hands of a Macedonian employed by the Venetians. He was shot in the head by a musket ball, fell to the deck and was beheaded by a zealous Spanish soldier. His head was then displayed upon a pike. This, and the capture of the Banner of the Caliphs by the Real, led to a collapse in Turkish morale, greatly contributing to their defeat in the Battle of Lepanto.
Michael of Rhodes, a Venetian galley commander, wrote a manuscript describing his knowledge of mathematics, ships and shipbuilding, navigation, and time reckoning. It contains some of the earliest surviving portolan aids to navigation and is the world's first known treatise on shipbuilding.
Twelve royal barges were dispatched to the mouth of the Chao Phraya River to receive the French delegation and lead them upriver to the capital in Ayutthaya.<br/><br/> The Siamese, or Thais, moved from their ancestral home in southern China into mainland Southeast Asia around the 10th century CE. Prior to this, Indianized kingdoms such as the Mon, Khmer and Malay kingdoms ruled the region. The Thais established their own states starting with Sukhothai, Chiang Saen, Chiang Mai and Lanna Kingdom, before the founding of the Ayutthaya kingdom. These states fought each other and were under constant threat from the Khmers, Burma and Vietnam.<br/><br/> Much later, the European colonial powers threatened in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but Thailand survived as the only Southeast Asian state to avoid colonial rule. After the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand endured 60 years of almost permanent military rule before the establishment of a democratic elected-government system.