Hello, and welcome back to This Week in History! Perhaps the most enjoyable part of writing this column each week is the process of sifting through historical databases and texts to narrow down a few events worth covering. If you have ever attempted to browse the internet with the search “this week in history,” you’ll find yourself at my frequent starting point — countless websites listing hundreds of events, births, deaths, anniversaries and battles happening every day of the year.
While the unending lists of events appear to be helpful — after all, it would basically be impossible to run out of events to cover — it raises an unavoidable question: How can one determine the most important events to cover each week?
In history, heroic battles have been fought incessantly, atrocities committed constantly, innovations coming to fruition weekly, and future genius babies being born daily; there is too much to cover for any writer. While stumbling down this rabbit hole of research questions, I realized that my goal for this column isn’t to cover the biggest battles or the most popular history; it’s to show events that put history into perspective. This week, we’ll venture into the not-so-deep depths of the ocean and the limits of the Sun’s light; let’s dive in!
Connecticut is a bastion of peace and yet at the forefront of military innovations. It appears to be an inevitable dichotomy in the state’s history as a naval hub for the United States. By the 1950s, seemingly nothing out of the ordinary was taking place in Connecticut — besides, perhaps, the earliest games of Wiffle Ball (having been developed in Fairfield in 1953).
Nevertheless, while life carried on as usual in the residential neighborhoods of the state, the same could not be said for the bustling naval production companies along Connecticut’s shorelines. In the early months of 1954, First Lady of the United States Mamie Eisenhower shattered a champagne bottle on the bow of a submarine, which would forever change how humans traverse the ocean. Its name was the USS Nautilus (SSN-571).
Although the submarine’s development may have sparked a swift Soviet reaction and the amassing of a large Russian submarine fleet, the ship had a much more remarkable impact.
The name “Nautilus” may jump off the page of anyone fascinated by early fiction writers, as it shares its name with a vessel in Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” the mythical sodium-powered submarine “Nautilus” piloted by the daring Captain Nemo.
While this connection may seem unrelated to the novel’s premise — in which the team of sailors go off in search of a giant whale and encounter fearsome monsters in the process — the submarine did accomplish something equally as impressive as Nemo’s adventure.
This week in history, on Feb. 4, 1957, the USS Nautilus recorded a total of 60,000 nautical miles traveled. One league is equivalent to three miles; the once-considered fictitious “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” had finally been matched by a real-world equivalent.
If you read the above point like I first did, you may wonder how the submarine could submerge 20,000 leagues deep into the ocean; in fact, the deepest point reached in the Mariana Trench — by Chinese vessel Fendouzhe in 2020 — is only about five nautical miles. The USS Nautilus could only dive about 700 feet, so how could thousands of leagues be remotely possible? That’s where a common misconception about Verne’s title comes in: “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” does not mention the depth of the Nautilus underwater; instead, it refers to the total distance the craft traveled along its journey. In that respect, the USS Nautilus actually surpasses the Nautilus, with “over half a million miles steamed,” which is the statistic cited by ussnautilus.org, the organization responsible for the historical preservation of the vessel.
While 1957 was the pinnacle of the vessel’s career, the USS Nautilus would go on to have a major restoration process in 1975, costing 58.2 million dollars. It now resides decommissioned as part of the Submarine Force Library & Museum in Groton, Connecticut.
The next event of the week transports us to the far reaches of Russia, where, for a moment, a flash of light proved to be the final success of a failed experiment.
Politicians and observers gathered one night to observe the sky as a small metallic sheet dotted it. For a moment, as the sun reflected off the device and — though conflicting reports exist — nearly three miles of land lightened to the brightness of two to three moons. The Russians had figured out how to extend daylight.
This all took place this week in history on Feb. 4, 1993, as Vladimir Syromyatnikov and a team of highly skilled Russian scientists developed the Znamya, a 65-foot mirror made out of metallic materials that was sent into space and then angled to brighten the Russian countryside.
Syromyatnikov had a long history as a Soviet scientist and researcher, helping to design many successful satellite experiments and coupling mechanisms used extensively in the 20th space race and even today. His designs reached a peak with the Znamya 2, the second iteration of his solar mirror; unfortunately, his later works met issues such as damage to the mirror upon decoupling and rotating towards the Earth, while ultimately, the final experiment, Znamya 2.5, would be scrapped by Russian investors.
Although nothing came of the technology that Syromyatnikov worked on until his death in 2006, the efforts of the Russians to harness daylight still stand as a remarkable feat and one that they accomplished even if it was only for a moment.
And that covers this week in history! I hope you enjoyed this diversion into some remarkable events that, to me at least, have an importance of their own, even if they aren’t battles or great tales of heroism. Sometimes, these simple historical stories that remind us that history is always there is always being made, sometimes in the sky, sometimes in the depths of the ocean. See you next week!