Aircraft carrier Timeline of Events

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Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

Timeline of Events

1922

3.20.1922

The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.

1933

2.25.1933

The USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier.

1941

11.13.1941

World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by U 81, sinking the following day.

11.14.1941

World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS ''Ark Royal'' sinks due to torpedo damage from ''U-81'' sustained on November 13.

1942

5.4.1942

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier ''Yorktown'' on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.

5.7.1942

During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

5.8.1942

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

8.24.1942

World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier ''Ryūjō'' is sunk and US carrier USS Enterprise heavily damaged.

9.15.1942

World War II: U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal.

1944

10.24.1944

World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier ''Zuikaku'', and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

1945

3.19.1945

World War II: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.

5.11.1945

World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill, is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 of her crew. Although badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.

1967

5.27.1967

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.

1972

10.11.1972

A race riot occurs on the United States Navy aircraft carrier ''Kitty Hawk'' off the coast of Vietnam during Operation Linebacker.

1986

4.28.1986

The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea.

4.28.1986