Boats and the sea have always been an important part of the history of Groton, known as the submarine capital of the world. It is home to a U.S. submarine base and to General Dynamics-Electric Boat. Electric Boat's prolific submarine construction in the 1940s helped America win World War II, and it was in Groton that the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was built and launched. The village of Mystic, now a popular tourist destination, was home to the nineteenth-century shipyards that built the Andrew Jackson, the clipper ship that made the record-setting voyage between New York and San Francisco, and the Galena, the first oceangoing ironclad used by the Union navy during the Civil War.
