Timeline for aircraft carrier service

Aircraft carriers have their origins during the days of World War I. The earliest experiments consisted of fitting temporary "flying off" platforms to the gun turrets of the warships of several nations, notably the United States and the United Kingdom. The first ship to be modified with a permanent flight deck was the battlecruiser , which initially had a single flying-off deck forward of the original superstructure. Subsequently, she was modified with a separate "landing on" deck aft and later with a full flush deck. Other ships, often liners, were modified to have full flush flight decks, being the first to have such modification begun. Those first faltering steps gave little indication of just how important the aircraft carrier was to prove to be. During the inter-war years (between the World Wars), Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States built up significant carrier fleets so that by the beginning of World War II, they had 18 carriers between them. The 1940 Battle of Taranto and 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in retrospect showed the world that the aircraft carrier was to be the most important ship in the modern fleet. Today, aircraft carriers are the capital ships of the navies they serve in, and in the case of modern US "supercarriers", they embark an air group that is effectively a small air force.
This timeline is an attempt to provide a unified chronology of key dates in carrier service. Aircraft carriers often serve their navies for many decades and this chronology enables the reader to track the progress of the carrier as it has developed alongside the evolution of aircraft for nearly a hundred years.
Pre-carrier history.
1849
1907
1910
1911
1912
World War I.
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
Between the wars.
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
World War II.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Post-war 1945–1949.
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950–1959.
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960–1969.
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970–1979.
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980–1989.
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990–1999.
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000–2009.
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010–present.
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Footnotes.
For most carriers, the dates listed here are those when the carrier was laid down, launched, commissioned, decommissioned and disposed of. If the carrier was a conversion from another ship, then the first date listed is when she was taken in hand to be converted; however, if a carrier was subsequently redesignated, its history is followed until disposal. The first time a ship is named in the list, it is linked to the relevant page within Wikipedia; if the ship was renamed, the first instance of the new name is also linked. Additionally, key relevant historical dates are interspersed with the ship-related dates to provide context.
For the purposes of this timeline, an aircraft carrier is a commissioned naval ship with at least one permanent flush deck designed for the launch and recovery of fixed-wing aircraft. This timeline does not include ships with temporary landing or take-off platforms, vessels designed for helicopter operations, marine assault ships of various designs, catapult ships, WWII escort carriers, merchant aircraft carriers, CAM ships, nor seaplane carriers and tenders.
The timeline is mainly divided into decades, the exceptions being the two World Wars and the interwar period, which are each treated as separate blocks. For the purposes of this list, the First World War is considered to have started on 28 June 1914 and ended 11 November 1918, while the Second World War is considered to have started on 1 September 1939 and ended 14 August 1945.
 The actual text of the message from the First Lord of the Admiralty to the Wright Brothers, dated 7 March 1907, taken from "The Old Flying Days" by Charles Cyril Turner, p. 293, was:
Citations.
uss kitty hawk citation 1980–1981