The Kon-Tiki earned its fame by helping Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl prove his theory that early humans could have sailed from Peru to Polynesia using trade winds on April 28, 1947. The raft was named for the legend of chief Kon-Tiki Viracocha, who supposedly sailed from Peru to Polynesia on a raft made of balsa wood.

The USS Missouri “Mighty Mo” and her crew found themselves in the middle of one of the biggest events of the 20th century on September 2, 1945. Forces from both sides of World War II boarded the ship to sign documents officially confirming the Axis Powers’ monumental surrender. The ceremony occurred on the deck of the ship and lasted only 23 minutes.

The Flying Cloud was the fastest of its kind for over 130 years. It debuted in 1851 when it sailed from New York to San Francisco in just 89 days. This was less than half the time it took comparable ships. Eleanor Creesy, the wife of the skipper, also made headlines and became an instant celebrity as a female navigator.

The famous 18th-century pirate Blackbeard captured the French ship La Concorde in 1717 near the island of Martinique in the Caribbean. Renamed Queen Anne’s Revenge, it became the flagship vessel in his small fleet of pirate ships. He continued to use the vessel to raid Atlantic shipping lanes until it ran aground in 1718 off the coast of North Carolina.

The HMS Beagle was the vessel that took young English naturalist Charles Darwin on his now-famous expedition to South America. In total, Darwin’s expedition lasted five years (from 1831 to 1836), and included a circumnavigation of the globe and many stops along the coast of South America, including the Galápagos Islands. The information that Darwin gathered on this trip formed his future theory of evolution by natural selection.

The Essex was a real American whaling ship that was rammed by a sperm whale on November 20, 1820, causing it to sink from the damage, but a few members of the crew lived to tell the tale. This event inspired Herman Melville’s classic 1851 novel “Moby Dick.” The ship was in the South Pacific Ocean when it encountered the whale, which was estimated to be 85 feet long.

Legendary French conservationist and innovator Jacques Cousteau was a leading name in 20th-century oceanic exploration. Often seen wearing a red beanie aboard his ship, the Calypso, Cousteau sailed the world, conducting valuable oceanic research along the way. The Calypso was a former Royal Navy minesweeper that had been converted into a ferry; Cousteau famously sailed it for 46 years.

The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, and then made stops in Cherbourg, France, and Cobh, Ireland, to pick up more passengers for the trans-Atlantic journey. The ship was on the final leg of its voyage to New York City when tragedy struck on April 15. The Titanic hit an iceberg during the early morning hours and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy; it has been in service since 1797. Its nickname comes from its great success in the War of 1812, when the British ships’ cannon fire could not penetrate its strong oak hull, leading a sailor to allegedly exclaim, “Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!” Today, you can visit the ship at its home port in Boston, where it was built.

On possibly the most famous journey of the 17th century, the Mayflower sailed from England to the Americas to establish the New England colony in 1620. After 66 days at sea, the ship landed on Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts. One month later, 102 settlers disembarked from the ship at the nearby settlement of Plymouth.