1707 Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships run aground near the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drown.
1801 Battle of Algeciras: the French navy are defeated by the Royal Navy.
1807 The Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.
1810 The Royal Navy seizes Guadeloupe.
1810 Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.
1893 The Royal Navy battleship {{HMS|Camperdown|1885|6}} accidentally rams the British Mediterranean Fleet flagship {{HMS|Victoria|1887|6}} which sinks taking 358 crew with her including the fleet's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.
1910 Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear Admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members), since Horatio Nelson.
1913 Completion of the Royal Navy battlecruiser {{HMS|Queen Mary}}.
1914 World War I: the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
1914 World War I: the first British Royal Navy defeat of the war with Germany, the Battle of Coronel, is fought off of the western coast of Chile, in the Pacific, with the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth.
1915 World War I: Cornered off the coast of Chile by the Royal Navy after fleeing the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the German light cruiser SMS ''Dresden'' is abandoned and scuttled by her crew.
1918 A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.
1925 Pink's War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins.
1939 World War II: The submarine {{HMS|Oxley}} is mistakenly sunk by the submarine {{HMS|Triton|N15|6}} near Norway and becomes the Royal Navy's first loss.
1940 World War II: At the Battle of Cape Spartivento, the Royal Navy engages the Regia Marina in the Mediterranean Sea.
1941 World War II: The German submarine ''U-110'' is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
1941 World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship ''Bismarck'' sinks the then pride of the Royal Navy, {{HMS|Hood|51|6}}, killing all but three crewmen.
1941 World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships {{HMS|Prince of Wales|53|6}} and {{HMS|Repulse|1916|6}} are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near Malaya.
1942 World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy's Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.
1942 World War II: The Japanese Navy attacks Colombo in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers {{HMS|Cornwall|56|6}} and {{HMS|Dorsetshire|40|6}} are sunk southwest of the island.
1943 World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the Royal Navy battleship {{HMS|Nelson|28|6}} off Malta.
1945 World War II: The surrender of the Japanese troops in Hong Kong. The surrender is accepted by the Royal Navy Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt.
1970 Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.