9781422280195

The Rise to Power During the late 1800s, European countries were hard at work forging empires, and the United States needed a force that could support its own relationships abroad. Steamship technology came of age, and Navy ships were able to cross vast distances with greater ease. The Navy’s key role was to protect the American continent from foreign aggressors, and it traveled the length of North and South America doing so. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, it almost completely destroyed the Spanish navy in the Atlantic. This demonstration of power led to the building of 16 new battleships, which were among the best in the world. Furthermore, in 1910, an airplane flew for the first time from the deck of a U.S. Navy cruiser. In 1911, the same pilot, Eugene Ely, took off and landed from a cruiser in San Francisco Bay. Naval aviation was born.

Pilot Eugene B. Ely, here flying his Curtiss pusher airplane from the USS Birmingham , was the first to take off and land from a Navy cruiser in 1911.

D efending the S eas : T he N avy

13