TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY 8 JANUARY 1907 THE ORIGIN OF “U.S.S.” Prior to the 20th century there was no policy governing the titling of US warships in official correspondence. Navy vessels were sometimes distinguished from merchant or research ships by Read More
16 DECEMBER 1907 RADIO FAUX PAS Communication between ships at sea had been line-of-sight visual to date, even in foul weather. Experimentation had been in the works for years, indeed in 1888 a genius of naval invention, CAPT Bradley A. Fiske, Read More
18 JANUARY 1911 EARLY NAVAL AVIATION As early as 1898 such forward thinkers as Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt urged that the “flying machines” then under development be investigated. Indeed, in less than a decade civilian aircraft designers Glenn Read More
13 DECEMBER 1901 SAMPSON-SCHLEY CONTROVERSY The naval battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898 had been a pivotal victory in the Spanish-American war, despite some initial miscues. The overall commander, Acting RADM William T. Sampson, had gone ashore hours before the Read More
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY 10 OCTOBER 1913 THE PANAMA CANAL At 1401 this afternoon, in a media event, President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button in the Executive Building of downtown Washington DC. Two thousand miles to the south, dynamite charges Read More