Their everywhere...
Having watched the Minions movies a while back I endeavored to create a top ten list for listverse, but let's be honest...their not that great. So instead you my loyal followers will get to read it! Albeit piecemeal. So first up is Sir Francis Drake!
The closest a real life queen has come to having her own dragon!
Dragon jokes aside he was a real firebreather, having both employed fireships against the Spanish Armada and "metaphorically" singed King Phillip II's beard at the sacking of Cádiz. He was also a real disciplinarian, giving the term "tyrant at the helm" a whole new meaning. In 1578 he "discovered" a plot by some of his officers to overthrow him and executed their "leader", Thomas Doughty.
The Great Navigator
Despite his reputation Drake wasn't just a pirate but an explorer to. Mind you he frequently did double duty but who can blame him? Certainly not Queen Elizabeth. In the course of circumnavigating the world Francis struck the Spanish like a hurricane. Lulled into a false sense of security by the gentle, quiet Pacific they were not prepared for the Drake.
With his looted provisions and gold bullion he set off into the pacific, eventually reaching the Spice Islands of Indonesia (the Maluku). There he was welcomed by the Sultan and came into possession of spices, nearly worth their weight in gold. From there he reached the Cape of Good Hope and made his way back to England.
Landing in Plymouth he proceeded to unload his riches in 1580, a few short months later being knighted by the Queen herself aboard his ship. The capstone to his life would be the office of Mayor to Plymouth, making him perhaps one of the greatest Englishmen to ever live. He became a hero to the common man, the nobility of course loathed him. There is nothing that old money hates more then the nouveau riche.
Old art where art thou in these seas of modern day "finger painting"?
Razing the Armada
The Spanish Armada was perhaps the largest fleet Spain ever assembled, numbering over 130 ships. It's mission was the invasion of England, surely nothing could go wrong right? Wrong, way wrong. From it's very formulation right to the end it was screwed. King Philip II designed it at his palace with the blessing of the pope...and the advice of no one else. Trusting in god to overcome any "unforeseen difficulties" he soon learned the wages of hubris.
The Armada's plan relied upon picking up extra troops in the Netherlands, an impossibility given the ferocity of the Dutch partisans. Furthermore it didn't account for Dutch boldness, clog wearing privateers mercilessly harassed them all the way up the channel. Adding to the unfolding disaster the Spanish were victimized by the weather and by the lack of navigation charts.
If they didn't realize that god had abandoned them earlier they realized it soon into the campaign proper. The British had come to embrace a new way of war at sea. A style dependent on speed and gunnery, by contrast Spanish galleons (or should I say "hulks") relied on boarding. So much so that the guns were typically fired only once, their crews racing off to join the boarding parties.
Having run rings around the Spanish beast the English decided to break their formation with perhaps the first ever suicide bombers, fireships. Old ships destined to be scrapped were loaded with anything that would burn and sent headfirst at the Armada. Upon sighting them the Armada broke ranks and ran into the ocean blue, thereby sealing it's downfall. Unable to regain their crescent formation the English broke them at the Battle of the Gravelines.
If the English routed the Spanish it was the sky and the sea that finished them. Buffeted into the North Sea by unseasonably powerful winds they faced storm and gale at every turn. The fleet by it's return to Spain had nearly been cut in half, never again would the Spanish mount an invasion of England proper.
Caribbean Twilight
The defeat of the Spanish Armada would prove to be Drake's greatest and alas final accomplishment. His later years would prove to be a gathering twilight, as old age and lady luck herself seemed to conspire against him. Neither of his two wives had given him children and fever struck his last expedition. In an inglorious end Drake expired from the hell disease, he was buried at sea off Puerto Bello, Panama at the tail end of 1596.
Sources, cite those buggers!
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Drake, http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/francis-drake, http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/spanish-armada/, http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-spanish-armada