This week in 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt became the first US President to take a plane flight, flying overseas to the wartime Casablanca Conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. FDR flew from Miami’s Dinner Key Airport, then the world’s busiest international airport.

Operation Torch, an amphibious invasion of North Africa had just been completed, successfully clearing the forces of the Axis Powers and “neutral” client state Vichy France from Morocco and Algeria.

Airplanes were not considered a safe mode of transportation for a US President at this time so while FDP had taken a plane to accept the Democratic nomination in 1932 this would be first he would travel by air since becoming President. It was at tha Casablanca Conference where FDR and Churchill determined “unconditional surrender” would be the only acceptable terms of surrender by Germany and her allies.

Interestingly by this time, Eleanor Roosevelt was the most frequent of fliers having made numerous flights around the country as First Lady. But for a President air travel unsafe, an odd reflection on the sexist views in American society in the 1940’s, even as World War II was bringing more women than ever into the workforce.

It’s worth remembering the first Presidential flight began in Miami not Washington DC, something all Floridians can be proud of.