Sweden built Vasa as a heavily armed royal showpiece: 64 cannons, elaborate sculpture, and enough upper-deck ambition to make the hull dangerously top-heavy. Before departure, thirty men ran back and forth across the deck and made the ship roll so alarmingly that the stability test was stopped. The sailing was not. On 10 August 1628, a gust pushed Vasa over, water entered the open lower gunports, and the flagship sank about twenty minutes and 1,300 metres into its maiden voyage. It became a museum piece by taking the shortest available route to archaeology.
Sources: Vasa Museum: timeline · Vasa Museum: facts · Vasa Museum: the disaster
Image: Sonse / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.