January 21 · This Day in America
Thirty thousand people pack the shipyard at Groton, Connecticut, in the January cold. At 10:57 in the morning, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower swings a bottle of champagne, and the USS Nautilus slides down the ways into the Thames River. From the outside it looks like a submarine. Inside is something the world has never had: a ship that runs on a tamed atom, that does not need to surface to breathe, that can stay down for weeks and circle the globe without refueling. Every submarine before this one was really a surface ship that could duck underwater for a while. Nautilus is the first true submarine — and the first time atomic power is harnessed not to destroy a city but to drive a vessel. A year later she will radio four words that change naval history: "Underway on nuclear power." The undersea age begins on a cold Connecticut riverbank.
Source: www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov
Also on this day · 1977
On his first full day in office, Jimmy Carter signs a single proclamation granting an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who fled the draft during the Vietnam War. Most had gone to Canada. Carter wants the country to stop fighting itself over a war that is finally over. The decision satisfies almost no one — veterans are furious, amnesty groups say it doesn't go far enough. He does it anyway, on day one, because he promised he would.
Source: www.history.com