Slide Show — AAAS at EuroScience Open Forum, 2004

During EuroScience Open Forum 2004, over 250 guests at the AAAS reception at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, learned about the warship Vasa, the only remaining intact 17th century ship in the world. Here, AAAS guests listen to a guide's remarks about a model of the Vasa. The complete ship, salvaged in 1961, is on display in the museum's central room. Built by Henrik Hybertsson at the request of Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus during Sweden's war with Poland, the Vasa heeled over and sank on its maiden voyage, 10 August 1628. Without modern scientific methods to calculate the ship's stability, builders in the 17th century instead used "reckonings," which proved inaccurate. Heavy artillery on board the Vasa caused it to tip and sink.