At 11:15 pm on 3 August 1958, the US Navy's nuclear submarine USS Nautilus, under Commander William Anderson, passed beneath the geographic North Pole after travelling under the polar ice from the Pacific side, in an operation called Sunshine, the first ship to reach the pole. Its nuclear reactor allowed it to stay submerged for weeks. The submarine's captain sent the coded message 'Nautilus 90 North'. It surfaced near Greenland on 5 August and the crew was received by President Eisenhower. The crossing demonstrated the Arctic as a route for submarines, in the Cold War.
Before and after
- 14 June 1958Birth of Olaf Scholz
- 20 June 1958Birth of Droupadi Murmu
- 29 June 1958Pele wins the World Cup at 17
- from 15 July 1958 to 25 October 19581958 Lebanon crisis
- 3 August 1958The USS Nautilus crosses the North Pole under the ice
- 16 August 1958Birth of Madonna
- 25 August 1958Birth of Tim Burton
- 29 August 1958Birth of Michael Jackson
- 30 August 1958Birth of Anna Politkovskaya
More in Exploration & discovery
- 1 October 1958NASA is founded
- 1 September 1985The wreck of the Titanic is found
- January 2004Spirit and Opportunity land on Mars
- 12 November 2014Rosetta's Philae lander touches down on a comet
- 26 September 2022DART spacecraft deflects an asteroid
- 23 August 2023Chandrayaan-3 lands near the lunar south pole
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.