Sunday · September 27, 2026
Get the app
Edited daily
American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
The events of August 20 · Read the full edition → · More from August 20 →
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…

1776 Club

This story is held for members.

Members read every story of the day — and tomorrow's, and the next.

Join the 1776 Club
$17.76 your first year · then $39.99/yr · cancel anytime
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.
Read this as a member →
Read the full August 20 edition →Everything that happened on August 20 →
More from Cold War America
1974

An SR-71 crosses the Atlantic in under two hours flat

Sullivan and Widdifield average nearly 1,807 miles an hour, refueling in midair along the way.
1983

Soviet jet destroys Korean Air 007 off Sakhalin; 269 dead, a US congressman among them

The Boeing 747 had drifted deep into Soviet airspace before a Su-15 pilot fired his missiles.
1976

Viking 2 sets down on Mars, tilted on a rock at Utopia Planitia

A stray radar echo fires the thrusters early, cracking the ground beneath the lander's feet.
1978

Sadat and Begin sit down at Camp David; Carter will need thirteen days

The Egyptian and Israeli leaders are barely speaking to each other, so the president plans to shuttle between their cabins himself.
The Daily Record · free by email

Tomorrow's edition in your inbox — one featured story, one quote, and today's flag status. Free, every morning.

The full experience

Read every story, narrated, in the app.

Take this story with you.

The complete daily edition, the deep-cut narration, and a library that's yours — the 1776 Club lives in the app.

Your membership comes with you — every event, narrated, with flag alerts, CarPlay, and your saved library.

Download on the App Store