Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 14, 1919 The U.S. Post Office Department, pushing the bounds of airmail and its applications further than ever before, conducted its first official delivery of mail via plane to a ship after it had already left port to sail across the ocean. This pioneering experiment took place when pilot Cyrus J. Zimmerman flew a... Continue Reading →
July 27, 1950 The luxury liner SS Ocean Monarch was launched at the Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd. shipyard at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeastern England. This yacht-like, single-funnel ship was built by Vickers-Armstrongs for the steamship line Furness, Withy & Company (also called Furness Withy). Those on hand for the launch of Ocean Monarch included California-born Mary Duffil Lewis. As... Continue Reading →
July 18, 1931 The Matson Navigation Company ocean liner SS Mariposa was launched at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. (That facility served as part of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s shipbuilding division.) Mariposa was built for service on a Pacific Ocean route between San Francisco, California, and Sydney, Australia. This ship was the largest passenger... Continue Reading →
July 6, 1891 In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, a full-rigged sailing ship was launched at the C.R. Burgess Yard in the seaside village of Kingsport. This wooden vessel, named Canada, had been designed by the prolific shipbuilder Ebenezer Cox (1828-1916). At the time of her launch, Canada held the record as the largest... Continue Reading →
June 22, 1925 A ferry named the MV Crosline was launched in the western region of Seattle. This wooden diesel-powered ship had been designed by naval architect L.H. Coolidge. Crosline was built by the Marine Construction Company for entrepreneur Harry W. Crosby to use in his recently established ferry service in that part of the... Continue Reading →
May 30, 1914 The Cunard Line ship RMS Aquitania, in her maiden voyage, left Liverpool, England, for New York. In doing so, Aquitania joined the RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania as Cunard Line’s “grand trio” of express ocean liners providing regular transatlantic service. Aquitania would be nicknamed “Ship Beautiful” due to her reputation as one... Continue Reading →
April 20, 1882 In what was then the Kingdom of Italy, the Italian Royal Navy’s screw corvette Vettor Pisani departed from the city of Naples for an ambitious voyage across the globe. (A screw corvette is a small warship powered by both a steam engine and screw propeller.) The key objectives for this global circumnavigation... Continue Reading →
February 16, 1979 In the Great Lakes region, a lake freighter (also known as a laker) made her first voyage. This was the first voyage of that type of vessel in mid-winter, and it took place on the mostly ice-covered waters of both Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. This lake freighter was constructed by Bay... Continue Reading →
As World War II continued to rage in the European Theater, the first and largest contingent of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion completed an eventful transatlantic voyage when the ship transporting them arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, on February 12, 1945. The 6888th -- nicknamed the “Six Triple Eight” -- was one of the small number... Continue Reading →
January 25, 2011 A sail training ship built for the Indian Navy was launched at the port city of Vasco da Gama on India’s western coast. This ship was commissioned into the Indian Navy just a little over a year later by K.N. Sushil, a vice admiral of the Indian Navy and the flag officer... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 