On July 24, 1304 King Edward I of England captured the last stronghold of resistance against English rule in Scotland, the formidable Stirling Castle. But he did not have to storm the castle to make the defenders surrender. He merely had to threaten them with perhaps the most terrifying siege engine in the era before gunpowder.
There is legitimate controversy over which ship was America’s first true battleship. But the Navy answers that question relatively clearly- USS Indiana was, from the outset, called "Battleship Number One."