On this day in 1923, USS Shenandoah  is christened. The rigid airship was intended for airborne surveillance, similar to what Germany...

On this day in 1920, a future U.S. Coast Guardsman is born. John “Jack” Cullen is best known for his role in finding and stopping Nazi...

On this day in 1776, Americans launch the first submarine attack. They hoped to break a British blockade of New York harbor. The...

On this day in 1851, the New York Yacht Club’s schooner, America , races and defeats fifteen yachts of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Did the...

On this day in 1939, the crew of the USS Squalus is rescued. The day before, the submarine had sunk to a shocking depth: 240 feet. The...

On this day in 1939, a Sargo-class submarine sinks during a deep dive. No submarine crew had ever been rescued once they’d sunk below 20...

On this day in 1963, the USS Thresher sinks off the coast of Cape Cod. Sadly, a rescue ship was floating helplessly above the wreckage,...

On this day in 1909, sixteen American battleships arrive at Hampton Roads, Virginia. This “Great White Fleet” of U.S. Navy vessels had...

On this day in 1943, a U.S. Navy destroyer accidentally torpedoes the battleship USS Iowa, then ferrying Franklin D. Roosevelt across the...

On this day in 1777, the British try to drive Americans away from Fort Mifflin. They failed. Americans held their own against six British...

On this day in 1958, USS Nautilus travels under ice in the Arctic Sea. She’d just become the first to travel, submerged, under the North...

On this day in 1792, American naval hero John Paul Jones dies in Paris. He has been called one of the founders of the American Navy. Of him, Teddy Roosevelt once said: “Every officer in our Navy should know by heart the deeds of John Paul Jones. Every officer in our Navy should feel in each fiber of his being an eager desire to emulate the energy, the professional capacity, the indomitable determination and dauntless scorn of death which marked John Paul Jones above all his f

On this day in 1775, Benedict Arnold sets his sights on Fort St. John’s, near the Canadian border. He would soon launch an attack on the...

On this day in 1942, a United States Coast Guard cutter sinks a German submarine just off the coast of North Carolina. Dozens of Germans...

On this day in 1942, SS Gulfamerica slowly sinks off the coast of Florida. She’d just been torpedoed by a German U-boat. She sank slowly...

On this day in 1917, the destroyer USS Jacob Jones is torpedoed as she travels near the Isles of Scilly. Jacob Jones would be the first American destroyer lost to an enemy submarine during World War I. Jacob Jones left for Europe almost as soon as the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. Its job? Escort ship convoys and rescue the crews of downed vessels. During the summer of 1917, hundreds of survivors from at least two torpedoed British steamships and one

On this day in 1944, the submarine USS Archerfish lingers near wreckage of the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano. The American crew soon...

On this day in 1775, George Washington directs Nicolson Broughton to take command of the first ship in Washington’s Navy. The war had...

On this day in 1916, a U.S. Navy armored cruiser is wrecked by a massive tidal wave. USS Memphis was effectively destroyed and dozens of...

On this day in 1945, the last survivors of the USS Indianapolis are pulled from the Pacific Ocean. They’d been there since a Japanese...