Aviator Eugene Burton Ely performed the first takeoff from a ship (pictured), flying from a makeshift deck on USS Birmingham in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Eugene Burton Ely was an American aviation pioneer, credited with the first shipboard aircraft takeoff and landing.

Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff.

USS Birmingham (CS-2/CL-2), named for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, was a Chester-class scout cruiser, reclassified a light cruiser in 1920. Entering service in 1908, the ship became known for the first airplane takeoff from a ship in history in 1910. During World War I, Birmingham escorted convoys across the Atlantic. The cruiser was decommissioned in 1923 and sold for scrap in 1930.

Hampton Roads is a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point near the point at which Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean. It also gave its name to the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.