TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY 11 SEPTEMBER 1814 BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN To the British, our War of 1812 was only a distant theater of a more global war against Napoleonic France. And the defeat of Napoleon at Toulouse and his Read More
23 AUGUST 1819 DREADED YELLOW JACK On this date, 34-year-old Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the War of 1812, died aboard the schooner USS NONSUCH, 14, in Trinidad. He and many of his crew had contracted yellow fever on a Read More
28 JULY 1861 CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER PETREL When South Carolina seceded from the Union on 20 December 1860, the State’s officials seized Federal property including the US Revenue Cutter Service schooner WILLIAM AIKEN, 2, who had operated out of Charleston since 1855. Read More
22-25 JULY 1797 NELSON’S ARM The Treaty of Lldefonso on 19 August 1796 allied Spain with France in Napoleon’s war against England. Now the combined French/Spanish navies of 38 ships-of-the-line threatened England’s Royal Navy’s control of the seas. A February 1797 Read More
12 JULY 1794 NELSON’S EYE The French Revolution in 1789 shocked the rest of Europe as existing monarchies feared the spread of republicanism. Dread intensified as the “Reign of Terror” unfolded, and French King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, prisoners in Read More
15 MAY 1812 PRELUDE TO THE WAR OF 1812 At the turn of the 19th century the territory that is now Florida was Spanish. This fact was of no reassurance to the administration of President James Madison in 1811. Spain was Read More
29 APRIL 1816 SHIPS-OF-THE-LINE Until the 16th century, navies, like land forces, relied mostly on hand-to-hand fighting to defeat an enemy. Tactics required warships to ram or grapple each other, then send across assault troops to attack the enemy’s crew. Fighting Read More
20 APRIL 1779 CONFLICT OF INTEREST Enlisting sailors into wartime service in the earliest days of our Navy was quite a task. Navy life was hard and risky, rewards were few, punishments were harsh and frequent, time away from home was Read More
20 MARCH 1779 “THE FEW, THE PROUD” “The Few, the Proud, the Marines” has been an iconic slogan of the US Marine Corps since it was introduced in 1976 by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency during a critical post-Vietnam recruiting Read More
15 FEBRUARY–16 MAY 1865 THE GUN FROM USS SHUBRICK (outside the NMCSD Command Suite) RADM William Branford Shubrick’s Navy career was long and distinguished. Born on 31 October 1790, Mr. Shubrick received his midshipman’s warrant in the Spring of 1806 Read More