Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19621776 Club

Nuclear-powered Savannah leaves Norfolk for her home port

A faulty gauge triggered a reactor shutdown before she even reached Georgia.

Three years after Mamie Eisenhower cracked a bottle across her bow, the NS Savannah finally put to sea under her own power. On August 20, 1962, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship departed on her maiden voyage bound for Savannah, Georgia, operated by States Marine Lines. A malfunctioning instrument triggered an automatic reactor shutdown en route, a routine safety response that newspapers ran as a near-disaster. The ship reached Savannah anyway, and Savannah became the first nuclear ship to carry a paying passenger…

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More from August 20
1948

Washington expels the Soviet consul who wouldn't produce Oksana Kasenkina

Eight days after she jumped from his consulate's third-floor window, Jacob Lomakin is handed his passport home.
2020

Biden accepts the nomination alone in a Delaware ballroom, no crowd, no roar

A pandemic convention ends with the nominee speaking to a camera instead of a stadium.
1998

Thirteen Tomahawks hit a Khartoum medicine factory; Washington says it made nerve gas

The strike came thirteen days after the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the target was a plant that made most of Sudan's antibiotics.
19201776 Club
The Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, and Dayton Triangles lay the first plank of what becomes the NFL.
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Read the full August 20 edition →Everything that happened on August 20 →
More from Cold War America
1969

Saturn V lifts Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin off the pad; Apollo 11 is bound for the Sea of Tranquility

Kennedy's eight-year-old promise has a crew and a launch date; the rocket cleared the tower at Kennedy Space Center this morning.
1975

Stafford and Leonov shake hands through an open hatch; American and Soviet spacecraft dock in orbit

Soyuz 19 and the last Apollo ever built linked up at 16:19 UTC, two days after lifting off from opposite sides of the world.
1966

Young and Collins ride Agena's engine to 412 nautical miles; no human has flown higher

Gemini 10 docks with its target vehicle hours after liftoff from Cape Kennedy, with Collins set to walk outside and retrieve hardware from a second Agena still drifting in orbit.
1960

From out of the deep to target, perfect: Polaris fires from a submerged submarine

A second missile follows within two hours, both striking 1,100 miles downrange off Florida.
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