Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
July 7, 1902 Two months after being christened, the sailing vessel Preußen – named in honor of the German kingdom and state of Prussia – was completed at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in the German Empire’s seaport of Geestemünde (now part of the city of Bremerhaven in the Republic of Germany). Preußen, which is... Continue Reading →
June 26, 2009 The cruise ship MS Azura, which had been built by the Trieste-based company Fincantieri S.p.A. at its shipyard in the town and comune of Monfalcone in northern Italy, was launched with a great deal of fanfare. (Fincantieri is the largest shipbuilder in Europe and the fourth largest in the world.) Azura was... Continue Reading →
June 22, 1942 Less than seven months after the U.S. entry in World War II, construction began on one of the U.S. Navy tugboats that would serve in that global military conflict. This vessel was USS Kiowa, which was named after a Native American tribe of the Great Plains. Kiowa was constructed by the Charleston... Continue Reading →
June 16, 1936 The vessel George W. Campbell was placed in active service as a cutter of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). This vessel was one of the first of the USCG’s Treasury-class cutters to be commissioned. Those cutters were each named after former U.S. secretaries of the treasury. USCG’s affiliation with the U.S. Department... Continue Reading →
In 2008, Christine Igisomar became the first Chamorro woman to graduate from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. (The Chamorros are indigenous Pacific Islanders from the Mariana Archipelago.) Igisomar followed in the footsteps of Juan T. Salas, who was the first Chamorro man to graduate from that military service academy; he graduated from there in 1968,... Continue Reading →
March 31, 1791 U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton contracted with architect John McComb Jr. to design the first version of Cape Henry Lighthouse on Virginia’s Atlantic shore and at the southern boundary of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. (At the time, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Lighthouse Establishment was responsible for all lighthouses in the United... Continue Reading →
February 13, 1959 President Carlos P. Garcia of the Republic of the Philippines issued an executive order designating a new yacht as the flagship (lead ship) of the Philippine Navy. This designation took place not long after the vessel had undergone a two-day series of sea trials. The sea trials were conducted under Philippine Navy... Continue Reading →
January 30, 2017 The extensive sea trials for the Indian Navy sailing vessel (INSV) Tarini were successfully completed. INSV Tarini, which had been built at Aquarius Shipyard in southwestern India’s state of Goa, was only the second ocean-going sailboat to become part of the Indian Navy. (ISNV Mhadei, the first of these sailboats, had been... Continue Reading →
January 23, 1951 In Denmark, the Jutlandia – an ocean liner that had been recently reequipped as a hospital ship – left Copenhagen under the command of Commodore Kai Hammerich for use as a medical treatment facility in the Korean War. “Despite snow and cold,” reported the New York Times, thousands of people showed up... Continue Reading →
January 17, 1947 The U.S. Navy ship USS Burton Island, which was named after an island off the coast of Delaware, began her maiden voyage from San Diego to the Antarctic region’s Ross Sea. Navy Commander Gerald L. Ketchum was in command of the ship. The 269-foot (82-meter)-long icebreaker was designed by the naval architectural... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 