Had all gone according to plan, nuclear-powered merchant ships like N.S. Savannah, the world’s first, would today be sailing daily beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge, entrance to Baltimore Harbor.

Savannah’s founders arrived at the foot of Yamacraw Bluff in 1733 aboard a ship named Anne. In the nearly 300 years since, our city’s name, not that of the settlers’ boat, has been ...

In a related note, the first nuclear-powered merchant ship, the NS Savannah, which was in service between 1962 and 1972, was named after the technologically groundbreaking steamship.