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The events of July 8 · Read the full edition → · More from July 8 →
19481776 Club

Esther Blake enlists in the first minute the Air Force opens its doors to women

The sergeant is now the first member of the new Women's Air Force; recruits will follow her to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, for training.

In July 1948, the newly independent Air Force had no women in uniform and a law that had just changed that. President Truman had signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act months earlier, opening regular military service to women for the first time. On July 8, Sergeant Esther Blake enlisted in the first minute the Air Force allowed it, becoming the first member of the new Women's Air Force. The first cadre of WAF recruits soon followed her to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, for training…

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More from July 8
2011

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Charles II signs Rhode Island's charter; no colony has ever put religious liberty in writing like this

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17761776 Club
Trenton and Easton hear it simultaneously; in New York, Washington's troops pull down the equestrian statue of King George III.
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Read the full July 8 edition →Everything that happened on July 8 →
More from Cold War America
1948

Stalin seals Berlin; two million people are cut off from the West

Soviet forces close all rail and barge routes into the Western sectors, 110 miles inside Soviet territory, over the Allies' plan to introduce the Deutsche Mark.
1950

North Korean guns open on the 38th parallel at dawn; Seoul has no tanks to stop them

Kim Il Sung's forces pour south into an almost entirely unprepared country; the U.N. Security Council condemns the invasion, and Truman moves toward committing U.S. troops.
1948

Clay orders supply flights into Tempelhof; the question now is whether the air can feed two million

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Truman orders air and sea forces to Korea; the UN backs a unified command under American leadership

Seoul fell yesterday, and the Security Council voted hours ago, but the question in Washington was never whether to act, only how fast.
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