Have you ever gotten the sense that something is following you around? Maybe there is a phrase, word, song, or something else that just keeps popping up in unexpected places, and you’re not sure why? That happened to me recently, and the product is this blog post!

August 29 marked the 239th anniversary of one of the Royal Navy’s worst and most unnecessary disasters–the capsizing of the 108-gun first rate ship HMS Royal George. When the disaster occurred there were innumerable family members, merchants and other people on board visiting the crew. As a consequence, there were wide discrepancies in the number of reported fatalities.

The Mariners’ Museum and Park has glorious photographs in its collections, of course, many of them maritime. Despite the number of battle-at-sea images, many of the most striking visuals are vessel launches.

In this blog post we’ll continue the discussion about one of USS Monitor’s gun cleaning tools, and the conservation treatment it has undergone.

Sixty-five years ago this summer, the laying of the first transatlantic telephone cable was completed. The project was jointly supported by American Telephone & Telegraph Company, the General Post Office of the United Kingdom and the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation.

So far, world events of 2020 and 2021 have been interesting, to say the very least. In the maritime world, a unique event occurred on March 23, 2021. If you watched the news that day and for many days following, you most likely heard about and saw how it unfolded. Can you guess what I’m talking about?

After a quick trip to the conservation lab, this makeshift muzzle was photographed and seen in a whole new light- literally. A series of images were taken of the label with varying infrared filtration to hone in on just the right wavelengths to best see ‘through’ the old varnish.

Dr. West has had an incredibly accomplished career in mathematics over her 42 years of service! After starting her career with the Navy, Dr. West focused her work on astronomical studies in an effort to understand how Pluto and Neptune moved in relation to each other in the 1960s.

See how we made secret Valentine's using invisible ink!

Profound respect and undying gratitude are owed to the merchant mariners who operated these ships even when they knew the work could be extremely dangerous.