For the first time in its very young life, the United States was gearing up for war. A new warship had just come off the line — the Ranger, built by American master shipbuilder James Hackett (who made a number of its brethren) in Badger’s Island, Maine, and launched right across from there, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was put under the command of a brash young Scotsman, Captain John Paul Jones, who was fond of saying “I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.” Jones immediately set sail, intentionally, into harm’s way, on the way to France, sinking two British warships en route. He made it into France unscathed.

On this day, February 14, in 1778, the Ranger, flying the stars and stripes flag of the revolution, sailed into French waters at Quiberon Bay. The French formally saluted the Ranger, marking the first time the stars and stripes were saluted by a foreign power.

The Ranger name became a legacy. The third ship to bear that name served in the the War of 1812, and the seventh, built shortly before the second world war, was the first true aircraft carrier built, rather than converted. CV-4 Ranger served in the Atlantic, keeping the Germans away from the Mediterranean and providing air support for the landings in North Africa.