Nearly 65 years ago, on the night of July 25, 1956, the SS Andrea Doria, the pride of the Italian Line and a symbol of Italy’s burgeoning post-war recovery, approached the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts at the end of a foggy eighth day of a nine-day voyage to America.

Suddenly, a passage that had been called the “Sunny Southern Route” turned into a nightmare for 1,706 passengers and crew aboard the “Museum on the Waves” as the Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm, claiming 46 souls in one of the worst maritime disasters to occur in the United States waters.