The Battle of Trafalgar was a decisive naval battle fought on October 21, 1805 off the coast of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. It was a decisive victory for the British forces, led by Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets. The battle marked
The Battle of Trafalgar was a fleet action which took place on 21 October 1805 between the Royal Navy and a combined fleet of the French and Spanish navies during the War of the Third Coalition. As part of Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom, the French and Spanish navies planned to take control of the English Channel and provide the French invasion army with safe passage to Britain. The allied fleet, under the command of French Vice-admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, sailed from the port of Cádiz in southern Spain on 18 October 1805. It encountered a British fleet under Vice-Admiral of the White Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson in the Atlantic Ocean along the southwest coast of Spain off Cape Trafalgar.