Mars the Magnificent 1564

The
Mars lies at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where it sank during a naval
battle in 1564. A diver at upper right provides scale. (COMPOSITE
PHOTOGRAPH BY TOMASZ STACHURA, OCEAN DISCOVERY

Researchers
and divers have started studying the secrets the Mars, the pride of
Sweden’s 16th-century navy, has held for 450 years.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC – It was the largest and fiercest warship
in the world, named the Mars for the Roman god of war, but it went up
in a ball of flames in a brutal naval battle in 1564, consigning 800 to
900 Swedish and German sailors and a fortune in gold and silver coins to
the bottom of the Baltic Sea.