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The US Air Force was a thing long before we knew it by that name.

For 40 years, from the do-it-yourself days of the Wright brothers through the hellish aerial combat of World War II, the American military flew scores of different aircraft and thousands upon thousands of missions. But in large part those flyers served as members of the US Army. 

Then, two years after the end of World War II, came the National Security Act of 1947. The act, which President Harry Truman signed on July 25 of that year, decreed that the Air Force should be its own separate branch of the US military, effective two months later, on Sept. 18.

Thus the US Air Force was born at the dawn of the era of jet planes, healthtopical.com nuclear weapons and supersonic flight. This year marks the 75th anniversary.