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Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed The World, Brian J. Cudahy

Transportation

Fifty years ago—on April 26, 1956—the freighter Ideal X steamed from Berth 26 in Port Newark, New Jersey. Flying the flag of the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, she set out for Houston with an unusual cargo: 58 trailer trucks lashed to her top deck.

But they weren’t trucks—they were steel containers removed from their running gear, waiting to be lifted onto empty truck beds when Ideal X reached Texas. She docked safely, and a revolution was launched—not only in shipping, but in the way the world trades. Today, the more than 200 million containers shipped every year are the lifeblood of …