On October 29, 1815, 205 years ago yesterday, the Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, was launched from Adam and Noah Brown‘s shipyard on New York’s East River. It was a steam-powered floating battery designed by steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton to … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
The story of the New York Marine Hospital in Staten Island—known simply as “the Quarantine,” seems very timely. It was the firey center of what became known as the Staten Island Quarantine War of 1858. At the time it was … Continue reading
Two hundred and fifteen years ago today, in 1805, the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets in the Atlantic off Cape Trafalgar. The decisive victory ended French plans to use the combined … Continue reading
The biggest World War II bomb ever found in Poland exploded underwater on Tuesday as navy divers tried to defuse it with a remote control device. No one was injured in the explosion. During World War II, the British developed … Continue reading
Happy Birthday to the US Navy! This should not be confused, however, with Navy Day, or the day that US Navy was founded by an Act of Congress. If success has many fathers, it might be said that the Navy … Continue reading
Bouchard Transportation recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The 102-year-old Long Island petroleum barge operator has been struggling over the last several years, involved financial shortfalls and a string of accidents, including a fatal explosion in 2017. Rather than … Continue reading
Jeanne Baret is believed to be the first woman ever to circumnavigate the globe. Born in 1740 to a poor family in the Burgundy region of France, Baret became skilled in identifying local plants. While in her early 20s, she … Continue reading
On New Year’s Eve, in 20-foot seas and high winds, the 130′ crab boat Scandies Rose operating off the Alaska Peninsula, developed a starboard list and suddenly capsized. Two of the seven crew were able to don exposure suits and … Continue reading
Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the US Navy officially named the newest of the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, not after a president, a senator, an admiral or a historic battlefield. Instead, they named the carrier after … Continue reading
We are having a relatively warm January with significantly fluctuating temperatures. Similar weather conditions 101 years ago, coupled with a shoddily built storage tank, caused the Great Boston Molasses Flood, which inundated Boston’s North End sending a wall of molasses, … Continue reading
One of the better ways to tell if a model works at predicting the future is to run it in reverse to see how well it predicts the past. Climate change models so far have had their limitations. Most current … Continue reading
Good ideas are rarely new. Container ships revolutionized liner shipping in the 1960s and 70s. Nevertheless, the idea of carrying cargo in easily handled standardized containers goes back at least 2,000 years. I was reminded of this when reading about … Continue reading
Shortly after winning the Sydney Hobart Race for the third time, the maxi-yacht Comanche has been sold by its current owners, Jim Cooney and his wife Samantha Grant, to Russian interests. Perhaps, oddly enough, the transaction brought to mind the … Continue reading
Last night in New York City, over one million people watched a jeweled ball drop in Time Square at exactly midnight to mark the arrival of the New Year. Over a billion people are believed to have watched the festivities … Continue reading
Like so many coastal cities, Stockholm has grown larger and its harbor smaller over time as landfill and buildings have replaced waterways and docks. The Local reports that over the past year, work has been going on in the Kungsträdgården … Continue reading
We recently posted about the 105th anniversary of the Battle of the Falklands and the discovery of the wreckage of the German armored cruiser, SMS Scharnhorst, which was sunk in the battle. In researching these posts there was one bit of historical … Continue reading
Last week, marine archeologists announced finding the wreckage of the German battlecruiser SMS Scharnhorst, off the Falkland Islands. The Scharnhorst, along with most of the German East Asia Squadron, was sunk by the Royal Navy 105 years ago on this day, … Continue reading
An interrupted broadcast of a football game, a newsbreak during a performance by the New York Philharmonic, a weather report followed by an announcement from President Roosevelt that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Reports of attacks on the Philippines. Here … Continue reading
The wreck of the World War One German armored cruiser, SMS Scharnhorst, has been located off the Falkland Islands. Scharnhorst, the flagship of German Vice-Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron, was sunk by the Royal Navy 105 years … Continue reading
Admiral James Holloway III has died at the age of 97. He had dementia, said his daughter Jane Holloway, and “finally got to landing on that great big carrier in the sky.” Seventy-five years ago, on October 25, 1944, Holloway … Continue reading