Video: 'AIR FORCE ONE: THE PLANES AND THE PRESIDENTS" (PART 1)' (Jan. 11, 1943, at 3:58)

(Monday, January 11, 1943, shortly after 6:00 a.m. local time; during World War II) — Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to fly while in office today as he left Miami today for a top-secret meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Morocco.

The Secret Service had regarded flying as a dangerous mode of transport. But air travel was the only realistic option for the trip to Casablanca because German submarines lurking in the Atlantic made a surface crossing too risky.