VEHICLES, AIRCRAFT & SHIPS

As revolt simmered in Spanish-ruled Cuba and American public opinion burned with sympathy for Cuban insurgents, the armored cruiser USS Maine steamed into Havana harbor. Officially, the ship’s mission was to make a friendly visit and protect American citizens and interests in case unrest spilled over. Unofficially, her presence sent a blunt message that the United States was watching events closely and was willing to show the flag in Spain’s troubled colony.

On the night of February 15th, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank while riding at anchor in Havana Harbor, killing more than two hundred American sailors. The ship had been sent to Cuba during a period of unrest as a visible symbol of United States interest in the island’s struggle against Spanish rule. When the Maine erupted and settled into the harbor mud, the immediate cause was unclear, and controversy over that cause continues in various forms even today.

USS Monitor served for only ten months, but her rotating turret, battle with CSS Virginia, loss at sea, and continuing archaeological conservation made her one of the most consequential warships of the nineteenth century.

A story of nuclear propulsion, undersea endurance, and how one boat reshaped the Cold War at sea.

In the Cold War, geography and technology combined to redefine what counted as a front line. The nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus had already shown that a boat freed from the need to surface for air could stay submerged for long periods. In early August 1958, Nautilus undertook a bold transit under the polar ice cap, passing directly beneath the geographic North Pole on August 3rd.

On a winter day on the Potomac River in 1844, the brand-new steam warship USS Princeton hosted Washington dignitaries for a demonstration cruise. The pride of the ship was a massive naval gun nicknamed “Peacemaker,” intended to showcase the Navy’s technical skill and the promise of long-range, heavy artillery at sea.

In the chilly waters off the Korean coast, the lightly armed intelligence-gathering ship USS Pueblo operated under orders to monitor North Korean communications. On January 23rd, 1968, North Korean patrol craft closed in, opening fire and boarding the ship after a tense confrontation in which one American sailor was killed and others wounded. The crew attempted to destroy classified material, but much was seized along with the ship itself.

On the evening of May 17th, 1987, the guided missile frigate USS Stark patrols the Persian Gulf during the long Iran–Iraq War, monitoring traffic in tense and crowded waters. An Iraqi aircraft approaches and launches two anti-ship missiles that strike the ship, causing fires and damage that kill dozens of sailors. In the chaos that follows, the crew fights to control the blaze, tend to the wounded, and keep the ship afloat in darkness and smoke.

USS Texas served from the Veracruz crisis through two world wars, fired in support of major amphibious operations, and survived as one of the most important preserved dreadnoughts.

The B-17 was almost home when the choice arrived over the radio: bail out, or try to land a dying airplane. The long mission over Leipzig was behind them, but the bomber itself was torn open—control cables shot away, engines coughing, the fuselage peppered with holes where German fighters had raked the formation. In the cockpit, the copilot lay dead. The pilot, badly wounded, had been dragged from his seat and now drifted in and out of consciousness, strapped down behind the controls.

Warrior and Black Prince were the Royal Navy first large iron-hulled armoured warships, combining steam, sail, a heavy broadside battery, and an armoured central section at the start of a rapid naval revolution.

The morning sky over northern Luzon is deceptively calm. From the cockpit of his sleek reconnaissance Mustang, Major William Arthur Shomo scans the broken clouds, hunting for airfields and antiaircraft positions that his ground commanders need to see. His mission is straightforward on paper: an armed photographic and strafing sweep over the Aparri and Laoag airdromes, far ahead of friendly lines.

A story of stealth, electric power, precision strike, and ambition told through the sailors and systems that defined one of the most unusual warships ever built.

As war raged in Europe and Asia, President Franklin Roosevelt took to the radio on December 29th, 1940, to explain why events overseas mattered deeply to American security.

Strategic bombing over Europe reached a grim milestone on October 14th, 1943, when the United States Eighth Air Force sent hundreds of B-17 bombers against ball-bearing plants around Schweinfurt, Germany.

In the tense weeks before open war in the Pacific, Japanese diplomats in Washington received a new written proposal from Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

That massive naval struggle reached its most dramatic moment off Samar.