1.
Alameda, California
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Alameda is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, and is adjacent to and south of Oakland and east of San Francisco across the San Francisco Bay. Bay Farm Island, a portion of which is known as Harbor Bay Isle, is not actually an island. The citys estimated 2016 population was 79,277, Alameda is a charter city, rather than a general law city, allowing the city to provide for any form of government. Alameda became a city and adopted a council–manager government in 1916. The island Alameda occupies what was originally a peninsula connected to Oakland, much of it was low-lying and marshy, but on higher ground than the peninsula and adjacent parts of what is now downtown Oakland were home to one of the largest coastal oak forests in the world. The area was therefore called Encinal, Spanish for forest of evergreen oak, Alameda is Spanish for grove of poplar trees or tree-lined avenue, and was chosen in 1853 by popular vote. The inhabitants at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the late 18th century were a band of the Ohlone tribe. The peninsula became part of the vast Rancho San Antonio granted in 1820 to Luis Peralta by the Spanish king who claimed California, the grant was later confirmed by the new Republic of Mexico upon its independence from Spain. Over time, the became known as Bolsa de Encinal or Encinal de San Antonio. The city was founded on June 6,1853, and the town contained three small settlements. Eventually, the Central Pacifics ferry pier became the Alameda Mole, the first post office opened in 1854. The first school, Schmermerhorn School, was opened in 1855, the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad opened the Encinal station in 1864. The Encinal area was known as Fasskings Station in honor of Frederick Louis Fassking. Encinals own post office opened in 1876, was renamed West End in 1877, the West End area was originally called Bowmans Point in honor of Charles G. Bowman, an early settler. The Alameda Terminal was the site of the arrival of the first train via the First Transcontinental Railroad into the San Francisco Bay Area on September 6,1869, the transcontinental terminus was switched to the Oakland Mole two months later, on November 8,1869. The borders of Alameda were made coextensive with the island in 1872, mark Twain described Alameda as being The Garden of California. In 1917, an attraction called Neptune Beach was built in the now known as Crab Cove
2.
Southern Pacific Transportation Company
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The Southern Pacific Transportation Company, earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American Class I railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The railroad was founded as a holding company in 1865. By 1900 the Southern Pacific Company was a railroad system incorporating many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgans Louisiana. It extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through Tucson, to Los Angeles, through most of California, including San Francisco, Central Pacific lines extended east across Nevada to Ogden, Utah, and reached north through Oregon to Portland. By the 1980s route mileage had dropped to 10,423 miles, in 1988 the Southern Pacific was taken over by D&RGW parent Rio Grande Industries. The combined railroad kept the Southern Pacific name due to its recognition in the railroad industry. Along with the addition of the SPCSL Corporation route from Chicago to St. Louis, by 1996 years of financial problems had dropped SPs mileage to 13,715 miles, and it was taken over by the Union Pacific Railroad. Southern Pacific founded important hospitals in San Francisco, Tucson, in the 1970s, it also founded a telecommunications network with a state-of-the-art microwave and fiber optic backbone. This evolved into Sprint, a company name that came from the acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony. The original aim was to construct a railroad from Galveston Bay to a point on the Red River near a trading post known as Coffees Station, the GRR built 2 miles of track in Houston in 1855. Track laying began in earnest in 1856 and on 1 September 1856 GRR was renamed the Houston and Texas Central Railway. SP acquired H&TC in 1883 but it continued to operate as a subsidiary under its own management until 1927, when it was leased to another SP-owned railroad, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway, was chartered in Texas on 11 February 1850 by a group that included General Sidney Sherman, bBB&C was the first railroad to commence operation in Texas and the first component of SP to commence operation. Surveying of the route alignment commenced at Harrisburg, Texas in 1851, the first 20 miles of track opened in August 1853. SP was founded in San Francisco, California in 1865 by a group of businessmen led by Timothy Phelps with the aim of building a connection between San Francisco and San Diego, California. The company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of known as the Big Four, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins. The Big Four had, in 1861, created the Central Pacific Railroad, CPRR was merged into SP in 1870
3.
United States Coast Guard
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The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the countrys seven uniformed services. This has happened twice, in 1917, during World War I, created by Congress on 4 August 1790 at the request of Alexander Hamilton as the Revenue Marine, it is the oldest continuous seagoing service of the United States. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton headed the Revenue Marine, by the 1860s, the service was known as the U. S. Revenue Cutter Service and the term Revenue Marine gradually fell into disuse, the modern Coast Guard was formed by a merger of the Revenue Cutter Service and the U. S. Life-Saving Service on 28 January 1915, under the U. S. Department of the Treasury. As one of the five armed services, the Coast Guard has been involved in every U. S. war from 1790 to the Iraq War. As of 2014 the Coast Guard had over 36,000 men and women on duty,7,350 reservists,29,620 auxiliarists. In terms of size, the U. S. Coast Guard by itself is the worlds 12th largest naval force. Because of its authority, the Coast Guard can conduct military operations under the U. S. Department of Defense or directly for the President in accordance with Title 14 USC 1–3. The Coast Guards enduring roles are maritime safety, security, to carry out those roles, it has 11 statutory missions as defined in 6 U. S. C. §468, which include enforcing U. S. law in the worlds largest exclusive economic zone of 3.4 million square miles, the Coast Guards motto is the Latin phrase, Semper Paratus. In a 2005 article in Time magazine following Hurricane Katrina, the author wrote, the Coast Guards most valuable contribution to may be as a model of flexibility, and most of all, spirit. Wil Milam, a swimmer from Alaska told the magazine, In the Navy. Practicing for war, training for war, in the Coast Guard, it was, take care of our people and the mission will take care of itself. The Coast Guard carries out three basic roles, which are subdivided into eleven statutory missions. Both agencies maintain rescue coordination centers to coordinate this effort, and have responsibility for military and civilian search and rescue. The two services jointly provide instructor staff for the National Search and Rescue School that trains SAR mission planners and coordinators, previously located on Governors Island, New York, the school is now located at Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown at Yorktown, Virginia. The NRC also takes Maritime Suspicious Activity and Security Breach Reports, details on the NRC organization and specific responsibilities can be found in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan. The Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement database system is managed and used by the Coast Guard for tracking pollution, the five uniformed services that make up the U. S
4.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
5.
United States Navy
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The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U. S. Navy is the largest, most capable navy in the world, the U. S. Navy has the worlds largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet, and three new carriers under construction. The service has 323,792 personnel on duty and 108,515 in the Navy Reserve. It has 274 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of October 2016, the U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. It played a role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy. It played the role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, which is headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is an admiral and the senior naval officer of the Department of the Navy. The CNO may not be the highest ranking officer in the armed forces if the Chairman or the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, the United States Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States. The Navys three primary areas of responsibility, The preparation of naval forces necessary for the prosecution of war. The development of aircraft, weapons, tactics, technique, organization, U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is to prepare and conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest, as part of that establishment, the U. S. Navys functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to sealift duties. It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, the Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors, captains, and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia, the establishment of a national navy was an issue of debate among the members of the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy, then the worlds preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships, and reported the captures to the Congress
6.
Minesweeper
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A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to engage in minesweeping. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, although naval warfare has a long history, the earliest known usage of the naval mine dates to the Ming dynasty. Dedicated minesweepers, however, only appear in the record several centuries later, to the Crimean War. In the Crimean War, minesweepers consisted of British rowboats trailing grapnels to snag the mines, despite the use of mines in the American Civil War, there are no records of effective minesweeping being used. Officials in the Union Army attempted to create the first minesweeper but were plagued by flawed designs, minesweeping technology picked up in the Russo-Japanese War, using aging torpedo boats as minesweepers. In Britain, naval leaders recognized before the outbreak of World War I that the development of sea mines was a threat to the nations shipping, sir Arthur Wilson noted the real threat of the time was blockade aided by mines and not invasion. A Trawler Section of the Royal Navy Reserve became the predecessor of the mine sweeping forces with specially designed ships and these reserve Trawler Section fishermen and their trawlers were activated, supplied with mine gear, rifles, uniforms and pay as the first minesweepers. The dedicated, purpose-built minesweeper first appeared during World War I with the Flower-class minesweeping sloop, by the end of the War, naval mine technology had grown beyond the ability of minesweepers to detect and remove. Minesweeping made significant advancements during World War II, combatant nations quickly adapted ships to the task of minesweeping, including Australias 35 civilian ships that became Auxiliary Minesweepers. Both Allied and Axis countries made heavy use of minesweepers throughout the war, historian Gordon Williamson wrote that Germanys minesweepers alone formed a massive proportion of its total strength, and are very much the unsung heroes of the Kriegsmarine. Naval mines remained a threat even after the war ended, after the Second World War, allied countries worked on new classes of minesweepers ranging from 120-ton designs for clearing estuaries to 735-ton oceangoing vessels. The United States Navy even used specialized Mechanized Landing Craft to sweep shallow harbors in, as of June 2012, the U. S. Navy had four minesweepers deployed to the Persian Gulf to address regional instabilities. Minesweepers are equipped with mechanical or electrical devices, known as sweeps, mechanical sweeps are devices designed to cut the anchoring cables of moored mines, and preferably attach a tag to help the subsequent localization and neutralization. They are towed behind the minesweeper, and use a body to maintain the sweep at the desired depth. Influence sweeps are equipment, often towed, that emulate a particular ship signature, the most common such sweeps are magnetic and acoustic generators. There are two modes of operating an influence sweep, MSM and TSM, MSM sweeping is founded on intelligence on a given type of mine, and produces the output required for detonation of this mine. If such intelligence is unavailable, the TSM sweeping instead reproduces the influence of the ship that is about to transit through the area. TSM sweeping thus clears mines directed at this ship without knowledge of the mines, however, mines directed at other ships might remain
7.
Ferryboat Santa Rosa
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Santa Rosa was a Steel Electric-class ferry built in Alameda, California, for Northwestern Pacific Railroad. She started out serving Southern Pacific Railways on their Golden Gate Ferries line on San Francisco Bay and she was purchased by the Puget Sound Navigation Company in 1940, and moved to Puget Sound. She was also renamed MV Enetai, which is the name she kept when she was acquired by Washington State Ferries who took over operations in 1951. The ferry was returned to San Francisco after her sale in 1968 and she is currently moored at Pier 3 in San Francisco, where she serves both as office space and as a rental facility. National Register of Historic Places Inventory—nomination form / MV Santa Rosa with the National Park Service Accompanying photos to nomination form with the National Park Service
8.
Puget Sound Navigation Company
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The Puget Sound Navigation Company was founded by Charles E. Peabody in 1898. It operated a fleet of steamboats and ferries on Puget Sound in Washington, known colloquially as the Black Ball Line, the PSNC achieved a virtual monopoly on cross-sound traffic in the 1930s and competed with the Canadian Pacific Railways steamships on several routes. Before 1927, when the company was controlled by Joshua Green, the flag consisted of a design by Mrs. Green. PSNC began to struggle following World War II, as operating costs increased, PSNC petitioned the State Utilities Commission for permission to raise its fares, but was rebuffed. Following a long series of battles, PSNCs unionized employees finally called a strike. The company responded not by hiring strike breakers, but by halting operations, the first all-Canadian route began on August 11,1951 and was between Horseshoe Bay and Gibsons Landing on BCs Sunshine Coast. Originally Black Ball Line had a service known as Black Ball Freight Service which was a subsidiary of the Puget Sound Navigation. It is unclear when the subsidiary was created, in 1952, Acheson and his wife organized a new subsidiary of Black Ball Freight Service, naming it Black Ball Transport, Inc. By 2008 Black Ball Transport was renamed to its current name, Black Ball Freight Service ended in 2008. The Neah Bay Dock Company was a subsidiary of the Puget Sound Navigation Company, in 1929 the Neah Bay Dock company owned a wharf and a hotel in Neah Bay, Washington. Pacific Wharf Company Guide to the Vernon R. Stedman Papers
9.
Washington State Ferries
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Washington State Ferries is a government agency that operates automobile and passenger ferry service in the U. S. state of Washington as part of the Washington State Department of Transportation. It runs ten routes serving 20 terminals located around Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands, the agency maintains the largest fleet of ferries in the United States at 22 vessels, carrying 24.2 million passengers in 2016. As of 2014, it was the largest ferry operator in the United States, by the beginning of the 1930s, two lines remained, the Puget Sound Navigation Company and the Kitsap County Transportation Company. A strike in 1935 forced the KCTC to close, leaving only the Black Ball Line, in 1951, the state bought nearly all of Black Balls ferry assets for $5 million. As of 2016, there are 22 ferries on Puget Sound operated by the state, the largest vessels in this fleet carry up to 2500 passengers and 202 vehicles. They are painted in a white and green trim paint scheme. WSF owned passenger-only vessels between 1985 and 2009, but after discontinuing its two passenger-only routes in the 2000s, WSF has sold its passenger-only ferries to other operators, below is a list of ferries that WSF has retired since 1951. Unless otherwise noted, all introduced in 1951 were acquired from the Black Ball Line when the state took over the companys routes. There are several other publicly operated, private, and passenger-only ferries in Washington state, official website Evergreenfleet. com-- A History of Washington State Ferries Past and Present Vehicle Reservation Predesign Study
