Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 25, 1885 Marcus Aurelius Hanna, the head keeper at Cape Elizabeth Light (also known as Two Lights) at the mouth of Casco Bay on Maine’s southern coast, received the prestigious Gold Lifesaving Medal. Daniel Manning, who was U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1885 to 1887, awarded this medal to Hanna for his heroic... Continue Reading →
Kayla Barron, whose passion for exploration has motivated her to both travel beneath the sea and fly into space, was born on September 19, 1987, in the city of Pocatello, Idaho. Her family eventually moved from the Gem State to the city of Richland, Washington. After graduating from Richland High School in 2006, Barron entered... Continue Reading →
March 15, 1902 In the English market town and civil parish of Beverley, a vessel constructed there by the shipbuilding company Cook,Welton & Gemmell was launched. This 149-foot (45-meter)-long vessel was named King Edward, the country’s reigning monarch at the time, and her original owner was James Holliday. In 1911, this vessel ended up in... Continue Reading →
March 7, 1925 After more than a quarter-century of service in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the U.S. Navy tugboat USS Iroquois (AT-46) was decommissioned. This steam tugboat was the second Navy vessel named after a confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples originally based in the northeastern part of North America. The... Continue Reading →
December 6, 1913 The steam ferry Leschi was launched from Rainier Beach on Lake Washington, a large freshwater lake adjacent to Seattle. Chief Leschi (1808-1858), for whom this vessel was named, served as the leader of the Nisqually Indian Tribe in the vicinity of Puget Sound in present-day Washington State. The ferry Leschi had the... Continue Reading →
November 9, 1922 More than three decades after being launched, the Norwegian ship Skomvær was retired from service. This three-masted barque was the first sailing ship in Norway to be built with steel. Measuring 257.4 feet (78.5 meters) in length, Skomvær also long held the record as the largest of all Norwegian vessels. Skomvær was... Continue Reading →
Linda Old Horn-Purdy, a member of the Crow Tribe, established herself as a trailblazer during her time in the U.S. Navy. In 1999, for example, she became one of the first women in that military branch to serve on a combatant ship. Old Horn-Purdy started out life on the Crow Agency reservation in Montana. “I... Continue Reading →
October 17, 1989 In the aftermath of a major earthquake that hit northern California, the fireboat Phoenix – under the command of pilot Arvid Havneras -- proved to be pivotal in combatting a fire that endangered San Francisco’s Marina District neighborhood. The Loma Prieta earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, rumbled through the region... Continue Reading →
October 5, 1889 On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a vessel built for oyster dredging in the Chesapeake Bay was launched at Tilghman Island in Talbot County. This still-existing vessel is a “bugeye,” a type of sailboat specifically developed to collect bottom-dwelling oysters in that region of the United States. This particular bugeye was give the name... Continue Reading →
September 11, 2001 The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals in the vicinity of the World Trade Center in the southernmost part of New York City’s borough of Manhattan; the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; and – where a hijacked... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 