Video: 'Great White Fleet - Decades TV Network'

(Monday, December 16, 1907, 10:00 a.m. local time) — President Theodore Roosevelt was on hand today at Hampton Roads, Virginia, when 16 U.S. Navy battleships with 14,000 sailors and marines, which came to be known as the Great White Fleet, set sail today on a 14-month, 43,000-mile round-the-world voyage to demonstrate American sea power.