In 1910 Eugene Ely made the first successful fixed-wing aircraft take-off from a ship, launching from a temporary platform on USS Birmingham. The feat showed that aeroplanes might operate from naval vessels. It opened the path towards aircraft carriers and a transformed relationship between sea power and air power.

Ely's flight altered the old poetic world of navies, oceans, and imperial reach. The sky now entered maritime imagination, later shaping war poetry, travel writing, and the imagery of global conflict.