Ever since men have "gone down to the sea in their ships", they have also devised new and interesting ways of killing each other from these ships. The history of Naval Warfare can be split up into a number of distinct eras, based on the style of combat that the technology available at the time could support. The Age of Sail lasted roughly into the early 1800's, until sometime between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of The American Civil War. The mid nineteenth century brought with it a number of key advances in naval technology: Other emerging naval technologies include: