John Ericsson's new ironclad is commissioned as the U.S.S. Monitor

To counter the reported conversion of the Confederate's Merrimack into an ironclad, the Navy put out bids for a ship to match her.  John Ericsson won the contract with a controversial design and on October 28, 1861, the keel of the Monitor was laid at Greenpoint, New York.  The first deep-water U.S. Navy vessel to be built from scratch as an ironclad, she was completed in a remarkable three months and five days and turned over to the navy on February 19, 1862. She was commissioned and famously saw action on March 9, 1862.  (By John Osborne)