On January 21, 1954, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower launched the world’s first nuclear submarine at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Shipyard in Groton. Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president’s wife to ever christen a submarine in the United States Navy.
The Nautilus slipped into the Thames river at exactly 10:57 a.m., and as the first submarine to be powered by nuclear fuel it could travel faster and farther than any other submarine in the history of the world. In 1983, the Nautilus was named the official state ship.
