As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, historians are revisiting the ingenious, often desperate, innovations that defined the American Revolution. Among the most daring was a vessel that looked less like a weapon of war and more like a giant wooden acorn. Developed by a Yale student named David Bushnell, the Turtle was the […]

By Eliza McGraw History Correspondent In the early morning hours of September 7, 1776, the dark, choppy waters of New York Harbor concealed a secret that would eventually change the course of naval history. Beneath the waves, encased in a cramped, acorn-shaped vessel of oak and iron, a lone Continental Army sergeant named Ezra Lee […]