Happy Birthday! US Navy to turn 247 years

History of the U.S. Navy?

According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, the Continental Congress established what is now the U.S. Navy on October 13, 1775.

The event was marked with "a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible dispatch, for a cruise of three months…."

After the American Revolutionary War— or the American War of Independence— the U.S. Constitution gave power to the new Congress "to provide and maintain a navy."

The Department of the Navy was established on April 30, 1798.?

However, in 1972, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt officially proclaimed October 13 to be the Navy’s birthday.?