Founding Dates of the U.S. Military Services

Branch Branch Period
Air Force September 18, 1947 - present
Army June 3, 1784 - present
U.S. Army Air Forces June 20, 1941 - September 18, 1947
U.S. Army Air Corps July 2, 1926 - June 20, 1941
Air Service, U.S. Army May 24, 1918 - July 2, 1926
Division of Military Aeronautics May 20, 1918 - May 24, 1918
Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps July 18, 1914 - May 20, 1918
Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps August 1, 1907 - July 18, 1914
Continental Army June 14, 1775 - June 3, 1784
Coast Guard August 4, 1790 - present
Marines November 10, 1775 - present
Continental Marines November 10, 1775
Navy October 13, 1775 - present
Continental Navy October 13, 1775

Military Academies

Air Force
Founded in 1954
Colorado Springs, CO
www.usafa.af.mil

Army
Founded in 1802
Westpoint, NY
www.usma.edu

Coast Guard
Founded in 1876
New London, CT
www.cga.edu

Marine Corps
Founded in 1845
Marine Corps officers are selected from among Naval Academy graduates.
www.usna.edu

Navy
Founded in 1845
Annapolis, MD
www.usna.edu


CVN 72 - USS Abraham Lincoln




President Abraham Lincoln

Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

President Abraham Lincoln
19 November 1863






The battle of Gettysburg

Generals George G. Meade and Robert E. Lee