U.S. Air Force Academy

Military service academy whose primary function is the development and preparation of officers for air service. In 1948, a board of leading civilian and military educators was appointed to plan a curriculum for an air force academy. The board was headed by then-president of Columbia University Dwight D. Eisenhower. The board's original recommendation was that, during peacetime, at least 40% of the regular officers taken into each branch of the service should be academy graduates. Two years after its creation, the board reached the conclusion that the needs of the air force could not be met merely by expanding other service academies.

The U.S. Congress authorized creation of the Air Force Academy in 1954. On April 1, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill establishing the U.S. Air Force Academy. Construction on the facilities began in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1955, and the first class of 306 men was sworn in that year. The first class containing women graduated from the academy in 1980. Holly Adams, a member of the academy's 43rd graduating class, was the first female senior class president in Air Force Academy history.