October 13 is the U.S. Navy’s 251st birthday!

On this day in 1775, the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, passed a resolution authorizing the purchase and fitting out of two armed vessels. One was specified as a swift sailing ship carrying ten carriage guns, a proportional number of swivels, and a crew of eighty men, ordered on a three-month cruise to intercept British transports carrying munitions and supplies.

That single wartime decision created the Continental Navy, which was the direct predecessor of today’s U.S. Navy. The service was largely disbanded after the Revolution, rebuilt under the Constitution, and formally designated October 13 as its official birthday only in 1972 by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt.

The original resolution was modest in scale. The continuity of mission has not been. Happy Navy Birthday to the sailors who still keep the seas open.
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