Date: October 1281

Place: Hakata Bay, Japan

Vessel: Kublai Khan’s fleet

Obstruction: Typhoon

Outcome: A kamikaze, or “divine wind,” creates a typhoon that destroys the vast Mongol fleet, saving the Japanese from foreign occupation.

Date: April 1641

Place: Irish Sea

Vessel: John Filmer

Obstruction: Barbary pirates

Outcome: 120 passengers and crew are captured and rerouted to Algiers, where they are sold into slavery.

Date: November 20, 1820

Place: South Pacific

Vessel: Essex

Obstruction: Angry sperm whale

Outcome: The crew is forced to abandon ship and travel in small boats to Henderson Island, where they resort to cannibalism when their food runs out.

Date: April 15, 1912

Place: 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland

Vessel: RMS Titanic

Obstruction: Iceberg

Outcome: 1,517 passengers and crew drown in the 28 degree water of the North Atlantic.

Date: May 7, 1915

Place: Off the coast of Kinsale, Ireland

Vessel: RMS Lusitania

Obstruction: German torpedo

Outcome: 1,198 out of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard die, including 128 Americans.

Date: March 24, 1989

Place: Prince William Sound, Alaska

Vessel: Exxon Valdez

Obstruction: Bligh Reef

Outcome: The tanker spills approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea, killing hundreds of thousands of animals and contaminating the local ecosystem for decades.