65 years ago, on December 30 1959, USS George Washington, the world's first nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, was commissioned. The term “Boomer,” a rather obvious reference, came into vogue as a nickname for those types of submarines shortly after.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.