The Warship Vasa

The warship Vasa that was built for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. Vasa fell into obscurity after initial attempts at recovering her valuable cannons in the 17th century but was located again in the late 1950s, in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. She was salvaged with a largely intact hull on April 24, 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet (”The Wasa Shipyard”) until 1987, and was then moved to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions and, as of 2007, has attracted more than 25 million visitors. Wikipedia