October 27 is Navy Day in the United States, celebrating the world's largest fleet, with 317,054 active duty personnel, 109,671 reserves, and 285 ships and more than 3,700 aircraft in active service.
It is the force that gives America the ability to project military power around the world. Although the Navy has been out of the spotlight after a couple of decades of land wars, it is expected to play a bigger role given America's Pacific pivot and growing reluctance to deploy troops.
"You're going to see a much greater emphasis on using sea-based forces to produce an effect,"Admiral Gary Roughead told Reuters. "You're seeing it in the Mediterranean, with Syria, and you're seeing it in the Pacific and the Middle East."
To celebrate America's Navy, we've pulled out some of the coolest photos from the archives.
After Reconstruction from the Civil War, America began a new era of foreign intervention, with the Navy leading the way. This 1899 photo shows sailors eating on the USS Olympia, which was America's flagship during the Spanish-American War of the previous year.
The USS Holland was the Navy's first commissioned submarine, as seen in this 1900 photo.
President Theodore Roosevelt ordered a fleet of U.S. ships to circumnavigate the world from 1907-1909.
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