Pictured here is one of the U.S. battleships in the fleet. The words "American Fleet" are also spelled out by the anchor rope along the bottom of the photo. The Amphitrite, Puritan, and Montgomery were among the ships making the tour.

Welcome American Fleet, Oct. 1908
After leaving the U.S., the fleet cruised around South America's Cape Horn, up the U.S. West Coast to San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, visited Australia and New Zealand, then stopped in Yokohama, Japan on Oct. 18-24, 1908. Then the fleet sailed across the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and the North Atlantic ocean before returning triumphantly to Hampton Roads, Virginia on Feb. 22, 1909. President Roosevelt was there to greet the return of his proud Great White Fleet. It was a 46,000-mile cruise.

It's interesting to note that as a means of long-distance transportation, ships were much more advanced than anything else. Ford's Model T was built in 1908, and the Wright Brothers sold their first flyer (a one-seater) to the U.S. Army in 1909 after a dazzling and record-breaking flight time of 1 hour and 20 min. (altitude: 300 feet).