ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Niobe (schooner)

So imagine you have a really cool toy boat that you love playing with. Now imagine that this boat was really, really big and was built a long time ago by some grown-ups as a way to travel across the ocean. That's basically what the Niobe Schooner was - a very large boat that was built a long time ago.

But the Niobe Schooner was more than just a toy - it was a real-life boat that was used for important things like carrying cargo (which is stuff that people need or want, like food, clothes, or toys) between different places. The Niobe Schooner was built in 1848 in Germany and was made mostly out of wood.

The interesting thing about the Niobe Schooner is that it had a lot of different owners over the years and was used for different things at different times. Sometimes it would carry cargo, and sometimes it was used as a school or even as a hotel! Eventually, it ended up in the United States and was used as a museum for a while.

Unfortunately, in the 1930s, the Niobe Schooner was caught in a really bad storm and it sank to the bottom of the ocean. But even though it's not around anymore, we can still learn a lot about history and boats by talking about it and looking at pictures of what it used to look like.