The Mary Rose raised from the Solent

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On 11 October 1982, the hull of Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose was lifted from the seabed of the Solent in a pioneering salvage operation watched by an estimated sixty million television viewers worldwide. The ship had lain on the seabed since her sinking in 1545, gradually becoming buried in silt that preserved the starboard side of the hull and thousands of artefacts in remarkable condition. The wreck was rediscovered in 1971 by the journalist and diver Alexander McKee, working with the archaeologist Margaret Rule. Over the following decade, divers excavated the site and recovered more than 19,000 artefacts, ranging from cannons and longbows to personal possessions, navigational instruments, and the surgeon's chest. The excavation was one of the most ambitious underwater archaeological projects ever undertaken. The raising was achieved using a specially designed steel cradle, and the hull was brought ashore to a purpose-built facility in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. After decades of conservation treatment, the ship and her artefacts were reunited in the Mary Rose Museum, which opened in its current form in 2013. The project is regarded as a landmark in maritime archaeology and museum practice.