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HMS Hood was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy. She was one of four Admiral-class ships ordered in mid-1916 under the Emergency War Programme , but her sisters were never completed, and Hood was Britain's last battlecruiser.

Construction of Hood began at the John Brown & Company shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland, on 1 September 1916. Following the loss of three British battlecruisers at the Battle of JutlandThe Battle of Jutland known in Germany as the Battle of the Skagerrak Skagerrakschlacht , was the largest naval battle of World War I, and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. It was fought on May 31 June 1, 1916, in the North Sea near Ju, 5,000 tons of extra armour and bracing was added to Hoods design. Construction on her sister ships Anson, Howe, and Rodney was stopped in March 1917Events January 2 The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank. January 22 World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. January 25 The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million January 25 Anti-, but work continued on Hood. She was launched on August 22August 22 is the 234th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (235th in leap years), with 131 days remaining. Events 1485 The Battle of Bosworth Field decisively ends the Wars of the Roses 1559 Bartholome de Carranza, Spanish archbishop, is arrested fo, 1918 by the widow of Admiral Sir Horace Hood , a Jutland casualty and distant relative of the famous Lord Hood1724 1816 by James Northcote, painted 1784. Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood ( December 12, 1724 January 27, 1816) was a British admiral. The son of Samuel Hood, vicar of Butleigh in Somerset, and prebendary of Wells, Samuel the younger entered the navy on for whom the ship was named. After fitting out and trials, she was commissioned on May 15May 15 is the 135th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (136th in leap years). There are 230 days remaining. Events 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold becomes the first European to discover Cape Cod. 1618 Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected disco, 1920 under Captain Wilfred Tomkinson and became flagship of the British Atlantic Fleet 's Battle Cruiser Squadron. She had cost £6 million.

In the inter-war years she was the largest warship in the world at a time when the British public felt a close affinity with the Royal Navy. Her name and general characteristics were familiar to most of the public, and she was popularly known as the Mighty Hood. Because of her fame, she spent a great deal of time on cruises and "flying the flag" visits to other countries. In particular she took part in a world-wide cruise between November 1923 and September 1924 in company with Repulse and several smaller ships. This was known as the Cruise of the Special Service Squadron and it was estimated that 750,000 people visited Hood during that cruise. In 1931 her crew took part in the Invergordon Mutiny.

She was given a major refit in 1930 and was due to be modernised in 1941 to bring her up to a standard similar to other modernised World War I-era capital ships. The outbreak of war made it impossible to remove her from frontline service, and so she never received the scheduled update.

Hood was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in late 1936. In June 1939 she joined the Home Fleet's Battle Cruiser Squadron at Scapa Flow; when war broke out later that year, she was employed principally in patrolling the vicinity of Iceland and the Faroes to protect convoys and intercept German raiders attempting to break out into the Atlantic. As the flagship of Force H, she took part in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in July 1940. In August she rejoined the Battle Cruiser Squadron and resumed patrolling against German raiders.

During the Battle of Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941, she was hit by a shell fired by the German battleship Bismarck which caused the catastrophic explosion of her aft magazines. Of the 1,418 aboard, only three survived. The dramatic loss of such a well-known symbol of British naval power had a great effect on many people; some later remembered the news as the most shocking of World War II.

The wreck of Hood was discovered in 3,000 metres of water in July 2001. In 2002 the United Kingdom government designated the site a war grave.

See HMS Hood for other ships of this name.