U.S. Navy Birthday, 1775

The Second Continental Congress established a Continental Navy, which later, on October 13, 1775, became the United States Navy. When the infant Navy was first formed, it consisted of just two armed vessels and their mission was to wage raids against the ships that supplied British forces in North America.  After the war, the Continental Navy was dismantled, but pirate threats to American merchant shipping led President George Washington to establish the Naval Act of 1794, creating a permanent standing US Navy.

In 1972, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized official recognition of 13 October as the birthday of the U.S. Navy.