SS Patrick Henry, the first of 2,710 Liberty ships built during World War II by the United States, was launched.

SS Patrick Henry was the first Liberty ship launched. It was built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation at their Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland. She was named after Patrick Henry, an American attorney, planter, and Founding Father as well as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and 1784 to 1786.

Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output.