With the development of airplanes coinciding with the first world war, naturally a lot of effort was expanded into using the planes for naval uses. Ships could be modified to carry planes, but the results were cumbersome at best: the earliest seaplane carriers could not actually launch the planes – they lowered them by crane into the water. It took an American test / stunt pilot to first demonstrate the first takeoffs and landings of planes onto ships.

On this day, January 18, 1911 pilot Eugene B. Ely successfully landed a plane on a makeshift wooden flight deck on top of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania. As Ely had already completed a successful ship landing the previous year, he was confident enough to attempt it again – and after a celebratory lunch with the captain went right back to to his plane and completed history’s first takeoff and landing from the same ship.

Aircraft carriers came to supplant battleships as the most important naval force by WW II. The plane’s long range and torpedo armaments range meant they could be used to scout out enemy ships and destroy them before ever entering into ship-to-ship gun range. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did not destroy the American carriers, which were not in port at the time, enabling the American navy to recover and counterattack much quicker.