31 MARCH 1917 THE VIRGIN ISLANDS World War I had been tearing Europe apart since the summer of 1914. Here, we struggled to stay neutral, despite the sinkings of American merchant ships carrying cargoes to the Allies. To most Americans, WWI Read More
19 MARCH 1917 THE YEOMANETTES By the Spring of 1917 the “Great War” had been raging in Europe for several years and a yet neutral America was being drawn ever closer to the fray. Noting the gathering war clouds, Congress had Read More
5 DECEMBER 1940 VANISHING COLLIERS The steam engine revolutionized naval architecture by freeing sea travel from slavery to the wind. But steam engines require a source of heat to make steam, and for decades around the turn of the 20th century Read More
15 FEBRUARY 1918 ENS ALBERT STURTEVANT In the early months of 1917 the United States was still officially neutral in the three-year-old World War that gripped most of Europe. But attacks by German U-boats on American merchant ships were continuing. All Read More
6 APRIL 1917 FIRST US SHOT OF WWI The US stood by in the summer of 1914 when Serbia, Austro-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain were plunged into WWI. For nearly the next three years we held ourselves neutral, and as Read More