The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created on October 1, 1958, "to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth's atmosphere and for other purposes." This was one year after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 and a "technology gap" crisis had become part of the Cold War.

Since then, NASA has built a largely successful human spaceflight program; sent probes and landers throughout the solar system and beyond; orbited telescopes and observatories of both outer space and Earth; and conducted research in aeronautics.

NASA History in Brief
http://history.nasa.gov/brief.html

NASA History Fact Sheet
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/factsheet.htm

Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4406/cover.html

NASA's Origins and the Dawn of the Space Age
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/monograph10/foreword.html

National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958
http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact-legishistory.pdf

NASA's 50th Anniversary
http://www.nasa.gov/50th/home/index.html

Great Images from NASA's History
http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/

NASA Historical Data Books
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/cover.html

NASA JSC History Collection
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/info/history/history_collection.htm

NASA Biographies
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/prsnnl.htm

Key Documents in the History of Space Policy
http://history.nasa.gov/spdocs.html

NASA History Books Online
http://history.nasa.gov/series95.html

NASA Aeronautics History Sources
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/aeronaut.html

NASA Records at National Archives
http://history.nasa.gov/nara1.html

NASA Centers
http://www.nasa.gov/about/sites

NASA History Chronologies
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/timeline.html

NASA Project Anniversary Links
http://history.nasa.gov/anniv.htm

Chronology of Lunar and Planetary Exploration,
1957-present
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chrono.html

This Month in Space History
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/calendar/

Mission Patches
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/mission_patches.html

Cold War Exhibit at Library of Congress website
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intro.html

Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/index.html

JSC's "Yesterday's Space Facts" date-based
search engine
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/dayfacts/archives/

NASA Technical Reports
http://ntrs.nasa.gov

Langley Research Center Technical Reports Server
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/reports/index.html

NACA Technical Reports
http://naca.larc.nasa.gov

NASA Science and Technical Information (STI)
http://www.sti.nasa.gov

NASA Thesaurus
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/thesfrm1.htm