Eugene Burton Ely was born in Iowa, 1886, and was the first aviator to take off from a ship and land on a ship. He flew a Curtiss Model D bi-plane from a platform constructed on the bow of the cruiser USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on November 14, 1910. It was a rainy, foggy day but he was able to take off, dip so low that the plane actually touched the water but recovered and flew one and a half miles to land safely on shore.