In just a few days, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory will celebrate 100 years of service as the Navy’s corporate laboratory with a rich history of performing advanced scientific research and making significant contributions to U.S. military forces on, under, and above the seas.
Commissioned July 2, 1923, as the Naval Experimental and Research Laboratory — later shortened to the Naval Research Laboratory (c.1926) — NRL has changed the way the U.S. military fights, improved its capabilities, prevented technological surprise, transferred vital technology to industry, and tilted the world’s balance of power on at least three occasions; with the first U.S. radar, world’s first intelligence satellite, and first operational satellite of the Global Positioning System (GPS).
“For nearly a century, NRL employees have been at the forefront of innovation and research, and we are excited to honor this Centennial as we look to the next 100 years,” said Peter Matic, Ph.D., NRL’s Centennial Celebration Coordinator. “Today we are kicking off the celebration with an event at the Laboratory to share this momentous occasion.”
In 1873, the U.S. federal government purchased 90 acres of Bellevue in southwest Washington D.C. and added this land to the adjacent Naval Gun Factory. This land was known as the Bellevue Annex to the Naval Gun Factory until 1923, when the federal government opened the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory on the site. The Laboratory remains on this tract of land to this day.
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