CREDIT: I Have Urgent Dispatches by Gordon Frickers
This year marks the 213th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, and the 14th New York City Pickle Night Dinner will mark this history shaping event on 9 November 2018. Those who appreciate the historical significance of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and the lore associated with his life are invited to attend this special event. The Dinner is named for HM Schooner Pickle, which participated in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and which brought the news to Britain of Nelson’s victory and death in the battle. This event has been a perennial success, with guests from the Ticket price is $295 per person. Dress is black tie or military equivalent. United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Switzerland and elsewhere.
Antony Phillipson, Her Majesty’s Consul General in New York is the Honorary Dinner Chairman.
Vice Admiral Tony Radakin, Second Sea Lord, Royal Navy, will be the main speaker. Most recently Chief of Staff of the Joint Forces Command, his initial duty assignments have included officer of the watch in HMS LEEDS CASTLE, navigator in HMS ANDROMEDA, commanding officer in HMS BLAZER and operations officer HMS BEAVER. Subsequent assignments include both shore and afloat duty in the Royal Navy and international commands including security duties in the Falklands, NATO embargo operations in the Adriatic, as well as escort duties in the Iran/Iraq Tanker War, and countering smuggling in Hong Kong and the Caribbean. While serving with the Naval Training Team in Iraq, he was awarded the Bronze Star by the United States government. VAdm Radakin is a qualified barrister, and has also graduated from several military related courses in the U.S. His operational and academic experience gives him a special operator’s perspective on the Royal Navy and Lord Nelson.l
Space is limited. For reservations or additional information, please contact email Sally McElwreath Callo or call (212)972 8667.
The American Friends of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, our sponsor, is recognized as a tax exempt organization. The Nelson Society, The 1805 Club and the National Maritime Historical Society also support this event.
On January 25, 1917, HMS Laurentic struck two German mines off the coast of Ireland and sank. The ship was carrying 44 tons of gold bullion to the still-neutral United States via Canada in order to finance the war effort for Britain and its allies. Britain desperately needed that sunken treasure, but any salvage had to be secret since the British government dared not alert the Germans to the presence of the gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant was the most qualified officer to head the risky mission. Wild gales battered the wreck into the shape of an accordion, turning the operation into a multiyear struggle of man versus nature.
These conflicting interpretations have provoked rancorous debate among archaeologists and historians. At stake are the credibilities of monolithic institutions and museums, the reputations of researchers and authors, the financial stakes of publishers, and the future of a popular historical narrative. For more than 45 years, award-winning research historian Kevin Duffus has followed the wake of the notorious pirate’s journey through history. Along the way he has discovered startling clues and pivotal waypoints in Blackbeard’s odyssey that point to a startling conclusion—one that many scholars do not want the public to know. 
The 2018 Commodore John Barry Book Award for American Maritime Literature will be presented to Professor Robert P. Watson, PhD, for his book The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: an Untold Story of the American Revolution at Fraunces Tavern on the evening of Wednesday, 6 June, after a 6pm reception in the Flag Gallery. For additional information and reservations, please contact Jessica Hitchen at the New York Council, Navy League of the United States at (212) 825-7333 or via email at 
The most horrific struggle of the American Revolution/War for Independence occurred just 100 yards off New York, where more men died aboard a rotting English prison ship than were lost in the entirety of the war. Moored in Wallabout Bay, off Brooklyn, until the end of the war, the derelict ship, the HMS Jersey, was a living hell for thousands of Americans, either captured by the British, or accused of disloyalty. Crammed below decks — a shocking one thousand at a time — without light or fresh air, the prisoners were scarcely fed food and water. Disease ran rampant and human waste fouled the air as prisoners suffered mightily at the hands of brutal British and Hessian guards. Throughout the colonies (later States), the mere mention of the ship sparked fear and loathing of British troops. It also sparked a backlash of outrage as newspapers everywhere described the horrors of the ghostly ship. This shocking event, much like the better-known Boston Massacre before it, ended up rallying support for Independence, and for the war. Revealing for the first time hundreds of accounts culled from old newspapers, diaries, and military reports, award-winning historian Robert P. Watson follows the lives and ordeals of the few survivors to tell the astonishing story of the cursed ship that killed thousands of Americans, and yet helped to secure victory in the fight for Independence. This is a story that must be told.
Join us as author Jack Kelly offers a fresh look at a critical moment in American history as the nation celebrates the Canal’s bicentennial. A technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal was the epitome of the can-do attitude of the age of the common man. The visionaries of the era didn’t just dream, they made things happen, building a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand. They invented new religions and new modes of living. The canal made New York the financial capital of America, brought the modern world crashing into the frontier and stimulated the nation’s commerce for decades to come. Heaven’s Ditch illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this “psychic highway” from its opening in 1825 down through 1844. It tells its story through a fascinating cast of characters: William Morgan planned to expose the secrets of Freemasonry–his fate permanently altered American politics. Charles Finney touched off the greatest revival of religion in our history. “Wage slave” Sam Patch became America’s first celebrity daredevil. William Miller envisioned the apocalypse. Joseph Smith, a farm boy and spiritual prodigy, gave birth to a new and distinctly American religion. Along the way, the reader encounters the very first “crime of the century,” a treasure hunt, searing acts of violence, a visionary cross-dresser, and a panoply of fanatics, mystics, and hoaxers. The climax arrives on the day millions believe the world will end.
Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site is a registered national historic landmark. It is located at the corner of Liberty and Washington Streets within the city of Newburgh’s East End Historic District. The site is one of 35 historic sites within the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and is one of 28 facilities administered by the Palisades Inters Park Commission in New York and New Jersey. For further information contact: (845) 562-1195. For more information about New York State Parks, please visit our website at www.parks.ny.gov.
In case you missed Thom Johnson at our seminar in Chappaqua last year (or want to see his fabulous lecture again!), he’ll be at Briarcliff Public Library on Sunday, March 18th at 2pm. Click here to view the 
The 2018 NMHS Seminar Series Schedule is here! Save the dates below for the upcoming lineup of world-class speakers. For more information: click on the links below, check out the 