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100 years ago - The 'Great White Fleet' Sails

On December 16th 1907, The Modern United States Navy came into being with the sailing of the "Great White Fleet". Here is a terrific article on that great event.

In December 1907, there was:

No Panama Canal.
No State of Arizona.
No State of New Mexico.
No State of Alaska.
No State of Hawaii.
No Penicillin.
No Freeways.
No Radio.
No GPS.

Very few cars.
Very few aircraft.
Very little electric power.

Women did not vote, nor did they serve in any of the Military Services.

Travel by the fastest known form of transportation of the day, the locomotive would allow you to travel 800 miles in 14 hours. Today, 14 hours can take you to any spot on the globe.

Most people of that era ever travelled more than 100 miles from their homes. Yet the sailors of the Great White Fleet would travel around the world in the two years of their adventure. In the end, they would travel 42,227 miles in their journey with little or no contact with home except by occasional slow mail postings.

The ships of the fleet, like most of the world at that time, was powered by coal. For all intents and purposes, the sailing of the 'Great White Fleet' around the world in 1907 was equivalent to sending a modern day US Airforce Bomber Wing off to the planet Mars.

Three signifcant US Navy officers were in the fleet during the circumnavigation. Their names were Nimitz, Spruance and Halsey. They would each become legendary later in history.

In my little game of "six degrees of separation", Teddy Roosevelt shook Nimitz's hand, Nimitz shook my grandfathers hand, and I of course shook my grandfathers hand. Maybe its just me and my "geological way" of looking at things, but 1907 doesn't seem like that long ago, and yet, the world has most certainly changed since a coal powered fleet plowed its way across the seas.

( ** - The State of Oklahoma was admitted to the Union in November 1907 )

Posted @ December 14, 2007 01:34 PM | Current Affairs

Posted by: Some guy at December 14, 2007 09:37 PM

Posted by: Vootie at December 16, 2007 10:20 PM