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SS American Star (1939)
SS ''America'' was an ocean liner and cruise ship built in the United States in 1940, for the United States Lines and designed by the noted American naval architect William Francis Gibbs. It carried many names in the 54 years between its construction and its 1994 wreck: SS ''America'' (carrying this name three different times during its career); troop transport USS ''West Point''; and SS ''Australis'', ''Italis'', ''Noga'', ''Alferdoss'', and ''American Star''. It served most notably in passenger service as ''America'' and the Greek-flagged ''Australis''. It was wrecked as the ''American Star'' at Playa de Garcey on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands on 18 January 1994. The wreck deteriorated and completely collapsed into the sea. As of 2022, it is no longer visible on the ocean surface and has become an artificial reef. Construction (1936–1939) ''America'' was laid down under the first Maritime Commission contract on 22 August 1938, at Newport News, Virginia, by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Maritime Commission
The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 1950. The commission replaced the United States Shipping Board which had existed since World War I. It was intended to formulate a merchant shipbuilding program to design and build five hundred modern merchant cargo ships to replace the World War I vintage vessels that comprised the bulk of the United States Merchant Marine, and to administer a subsidy system authorized by the Act to offset the cost differential between building in the U.S. and operating ships under the American flag. It also formed the United States Maritime Service for the training of seagoing ship's officers to man the new fleet. As a symbol of the rebirth of the U.S. Merchant Marine and Merchant Shipbuilding under the Merchant Marine Act, the first vessel contracted for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newport News, Virginia
Newport News () is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the 5th most populous city in Virginia and 140th most populous city in the United States. Newport News is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is at the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the northern shore of the James River extending southeast from Skiffe's Creek along many miles of waterfront to the river's mouth at Newport News Point on the harbor of Hampton Roads. The area now known as Newport News was once a part of Warwick County. Warwick County was one of the eight original shires of Virginia, formed by the House of Burgesses in the British Colony of Virginia by order of King Charles I in 1634. In 1881, fifteen years of rapid development began under the leadership of Collis P. Huntington, whose new Peninsula Extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from Richmond opene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage (4,635,628 tonnes as of 2019) and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft . The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naval Mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, any vessel or a particular vessel type, akin to anti-infantry vs. anti-vehicle mines. Naval mines can be used offensively, to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour; or defensively, to protect friendly vessels and create "safe" zones. Mines allow the minelaying force commander to concentrate warships or defensive assets in mine-free areas giving the adversary three choices: undertake an expensive and time-consuming minesweeping effort, accept the casualties of challenging the minefield, or use the unmined waters where the greatest concentration of enemy firepower will be encountered. Although international law requires signatory nations to declare mined areas, precise locations remain secret; and non-complying individ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Degaussing
Degaussing is the process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is named after the gauss, a unit of magnetism, which in turn was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis, it is generally not possible to reduce a magnetic field completely to zero, so degaussing typically induces a very small "known" field referred to as bias. Degaussing was originally applied to reduce ships' magnetic signatures during World War II. Degaussing is also used to reduce magnetic fields in cathode ray tube monitors and to destroy data held on magnetic storage. Ships' hulls The term was first used by then-Commander Charles F. Goodeve, Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, during World War II while trying to counter the German magnetic naval mines that were wreaking havoc on the British fleet. The mines detected the increase in the magnetic field when the steel in a ship concentrated the Earth's magnetic field over it. Admiralty scientists, including Goodeve, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship, boat, or flying boat. The hull may open at the top (such as a dinghy), or it may be fully or partially covered with a deck. Atop the deck may be a deckhouse and other superstructures, such as a funnel, derrick, or mast. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline. General features There is a wide variety of hull types that are chosen for suitability for different usages, the hull shape being dependent upon the needs of the design. Shapes range from a nearly perfect box in the case of scow barges to a needle-sharp surface of revolution in the case of a racing multihull sailboat. The shape is chosen to strike a balance between cost, hydrostatic considerations (accommodation, load carrying, and stability), hydrodynamics (speed, power requirements, and motion and behavior in a seaway) and special considerations for the ship's role, such as the rounded bow of an icebreaker or the flat bottom of a landing craft. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flag Of The United States
The national flag of the United States, United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the Glossary of vexillology#Flag elements, canton (referred to specifically as the "union") bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the Thirteen Colonies, thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, and became the first states in the U.S. Nicknames for the flag include the ''Stars and Stripes'', ''Old Glory'', and the ''Star-Spangled Banner''. History The current design of the U.S. flag is its 27th; the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, and brick. The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects (''pots,'' ''vessels or vases'') or figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials like silica, hardened and sintered in fire. Later, ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial and building products, as well as a wide range of materials developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as in semiconductors. The word "'' ceramic''" comes from the Greek word (), "of pottery" or "for pottery", from (), "potter's clay, tile, pottery". The earliest kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stainless Steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corrosion resistance, resistance to corrosion results from the chromium, which forms a Passivation (chemistry), passive film that can protect the material and self-healing material, self-heal in the presence of oxygen. The alloy's properties, such as luster and resistance to corrosion, are useful in many applications. Stainless steel can be rolled into Sheet metal, sheets, plates, bars, wire, and tubing. These can be used in cookware, cutlery, surgical instruments, major appliances, vehicles, construction material in large buildings, industrial equipment (e.g., in paper mills, chemical plants, water treatment), and storage tanks and tankers for chemicals and food products. The biological cleanability of stainless steel is superior to both alumi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eggers & Higgins
Eggers & Higgins was a New York architectural firm partnered by Otto Reinhold Eggers (August 4, 1882 – April 23, 1964) and Daniel Paul Higgins (September 12, 1886 – December 26, 1953). The architects were responsible for the construction phase of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial beginning in 1939, two years after the death of its original architect, John Russell Pope, despite protests that their appointment had been undemocratic and therefore "un-Jeffersonian". Critics argued a competition should have been held to choose Pope's successor. In 1941, they also completed construction of Pope's other famous design, the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, also in Washington, D.C. The pair were longtime associates of Pope in the firm he founded in 1903 as the Office of John Russell Pope, Architect. Eggers was a brilliant designer and renderer who served as Pope's right hand for almost thirty years. They changed the name of the firm to Eggers & Higgins in 1937, soon after Pope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kermit Roosevelt
Kermit Roosevelt MC (October 10, 1889 – June 4, 1943) was an American businessman, soldier, explorer, and writer. A son of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, Kermit graduated from Harvard College, served in both World Wars (with both the British and U.S. Armies), and explored two continents with his father. He fought a lifelong battle with depression and died by suicide while serving in the US Army in Alaska during World War II.William E. Lemanski, ''Lost in the Shadow of Fame: The Neglected Story of Kermit Roosevelt: A Gallant and Tragic American'' 2011. Childhood and education Kermit was born at Sagamore Hill, the family estate in Oyster Bay, New York, the second son of Theodore Roosevelt, (1858–1919) and Edith Kermit Carow (1861–1948). He had an older half-sister Alice Lee Roosevelt (1884–1980), from his father's first marriage to Alice Hathaway Lee (1861–1884), an elder brother, Theodore Roosevelt III (1887–1944), a younger sist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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