Sunday · November 15, 2026

Edited daily

American history, reported as it happened

Made for the 250th

The events of September 1 · Read the full edition → · More from September 1 →

19821776 Club

The Air Force stands up a new command for space, headquartered in Colorado Springs

Gen. James V. Hartinger takes charge after years of infighting among rival commands over who would run America's space assets.

For years, the Air Force ran its space programs out of a patchwork of commands, none of them fully in charge. The looming arrival of the Space Shuttle only sharpened the fight, with Systems Command, Aerospace Defense Command, Strategic Air Command, and Military Airlift Command all arguing they should run shuttle operations. On September 1, 1982, the Air Force cut through the dispute and activated Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, the first dedicated U.S. military space command. Gen. James V. Hartinger took the first commander's chair…

1776 Club

This story is held for members.

Members read every story of the day — and tomorrow's, and the next.

Join the 1776 Club

$17.76 your first year · then $39.99/yr · cancel anytime

More from September 1

Soviet jet destroys Korean Air 007 off Sakhalin; 269 dead, a US congressman among them

The Boeing 747 had drifted deep into Soviet airspace before a Su-15 pilot fired his missiles.

An SR-71 crosses the Atlantic in under two hours flat

Sullivan and Widdifield average nearly 1,807 miles an hour, refueling in midair along the way.

Redcoats empty the Charlestown powder house before dawn

Word of the raid spreads wrong and fast, and thousands of militiamen are on the road before anyone confirms a shot was fired.

Oppenheimer and his student Hartland Snyder show a dying star can seal itself off from the universe entirely.

Read this as a member →

Read the full September 1 edition →Everything that happened on September 1 →

More from Cold War America

Apollo 7 lifts off from Cape Kennedy; America flies astronauts again

Twenty-one months after the Apollo 1 fire killed three astronauts on the pad, a Saturn IB carries three more into orbit.

Sullivan steps outside Challenger; first American woman to walk in space

Over the next three and a half hours she and David Leestma pumped hydrazine into a mock satellite to prove orbiting spacecraft could be refueled.

A thread-like shape appears under the electron microscope in Atlanta

CDC virologists Fred Murphy and Alyne Harrison get the first clear image of the virus killing hundreds in Sudan and Zaire.

A U-2 camera finds Soviet missiles ninety miles from Florida

The film still has to be developed and read before Washington even knows what it has.

The Daily Record · free by email

Tomorrow's edition in your inbox — one featured story, one quote, and today's flag status. Free, every morning.

The full experience

Read every story, narrated, in the app.

Take this story with you.

The complete daily edition, the deep-cut narration, and a library that's yours — the 1776 Club lives in the app.

Your membership comes with you — every event, narrated, with flag alerts, CarPlay, and your saved library.