Horatio Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar.

 Horatio Nelson

Nelson had 27 ships at the battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), against the Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships. A total of 22 French and Spanish ships were destroyed but only one British ship. The British lost 1,666 men in battle against 13,781 French and Spanish.

The French Admiral, Villeneuve, was captured at Trafalgar and taken prisoner, but was soon returned to France. He committed suicide in Rennes on 22 April 1806 shortly after being freed on parole. He stabbed himself six times in the chest while staying at an inn.

Nelson's secretary, John Scott, was struck by a cannonball that nearly cut him in two and his body was thrown overboard. Nelson was shot an hour and half later. Thomas Hardy, the captain of the Victory, had urged Nelson to remove his medals from his uniform so he would be less conspicuous to an enemy sniper. Nelson refused to do so. He was hit by a musket ball fired by a French marine, from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable, which entered his left shoulder, passed through a lung, then his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae. He died three hours later.

The bullet is now part of the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. Many of Nelson's medals and personal artefacts have been stolen since 1900.