The United States Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Maryland,
with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors. Known as the
Naval School until 1850, the curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, French along
with natural philosophy.

The Naval School officially became the U.S. Naval Academy in 1850,
and a new curriculum went into effect, requiring midshipmen to
study at the academy for four years and to train aboard ships each
summer—the basic format that remains at the academy to this day. 

The USS Nautilus (above), the world’s first nuclear submarine,was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy
Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a Russian-born engineer who
joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in
charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work
on an atomic submarine. 

In 1952, the Nautilus‘ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman,
and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a
bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the
Thames River at Groton, Connecticut.

On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus
accomplished the first undersea voyage to the geographic
North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus
dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles
under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world.

On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announced he is ordering U.S.
air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing
an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking
the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations
resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of
communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman
also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against
invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid
to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam. 

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972)