Webkinz Insider

COWS4YOU · 10-10-2009, 12:51 AM

On October 10, 1845, the US Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Maryland. Founded in 1845 by Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, the Academy started as the Naval School on 10 acres of old Fort Severn in Annapolis. Since then, the development of the Naval Academy has reflected the history of the United States. As our country has changed culturally and technologically, so has the Naval Academy. In only a few decades, the Navy has moved from a fleet of sail and steam-powered ships to a high-tech fleet with nuclear-powered submarines and surface ships and supersonic aircraft. The Academy has changed, too, giving midshipmen the up-to-date academic and professional training they need to be effective naval officers in their assignments after graduation.

In 1850 the Naval School became the United States Naval Academy. A new curriculum went into effect requiring midshipmen to study at the Academy for four years and to train aboard ships each summer. That format is the basis of a far more advanced and sophisticated curriculum at the Naval Academy today. As the U.S. Navy grew over the years, the academy expanded. The campus of 10 acres increased to 338. The original student body of 55 midshipmen grew to a brigade of 4,000 midshipmen. Modern granite buildings replaced the old wooden structures of Fort Severn and the Naval School.

Congress authorized the Naval Academy to begin awarding bachelor of science degrees in 1933. The Academy later replaced a fixed curriculum taken by all midshipmen with the present core curriculum plus 18 major fields of study, a wide variety of elective courses and advanced study and research opportunities.

The Naval Academy first accepted women as midshipmen in 1976, when Congress authorized the admission of women to all of the service academies. Women comprise about 15-17 percent. (thanks to the USNA website).

Anyone that is traveling this long weekend, I wish you a safe journey. Anyone sick, I wish you to get better quickly. To anyone that has graduated from the US Naval Academy, thank you for what you do.