The Great White Fleet Between 1907 and 1909, US President Theodore Roosevelt sent a colossal armada of 16 battleships, painted immaculate white and carrying 14,000 sailors, around the world on a voyage of more than 50,000 miles with twenty stops across six continents. Officially, it was a “voyage of peace.” The fleet's mission was to make friendly courtesy visits to many countries while displaying America's new naval power to the world. But where was this huge military fleet at the end of December 1908? It was sailing precisely through the Strait of Messina, between mainland Italy and Sicily, at the very moment when the devastating earthquake (and ensuing tsunami) virtually wiped the city off the map; between 75,000 and 200,000 lives were lost. The city of Reggio Calabria, just across the strait on the mainland, suffered the same fate. Coincidence? Or was this fleet testing secret seismic or electromagnetic weapons as a show of absolute force to the rest of the world? Perhaps the Sicilians simply made the mistake of not building a welcoming arch for the Great White Fleet. The kind of arch with which many other countries it visited greeted the fleet's members. And only history knows whether these were triumphal arches or arches of defeat. To learn more about this fascinating subject, don't miss our show: Hundreds of Devastated Cities - Tartaria: Forbidden Archives 2 https://youtu.be/rQv19xjomzk