Short answers, pulled from the story.
NACA was founded on the 3rd of March 1915, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Naval Appropriations Bill into law. The enabling legislation was attached as a rider to the bill and passed on the last day of the 63rd Congress.
NACA solved critical supercharger problems for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, giving U.S. aircraft a power advantage above 15,000 feet that Axis forces never fully countered. NACA also developed the laminar wing profile used on the P-51 Mustang and was described at the time as "The Force Behind Our Air Supremacy."
Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1 past Mach 1, but NACA was officially in charge of the testing and development program. The bulk of the research came from NACA engineer John Stack, head of the Compressibility Research Division, who received the Collier Trophy alongside Yeager and the owner of Bell Aircraft.
NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb determined the area rule in 1951; it explains how to shape an aircraft's cross-section to reduce drag at transonic speeds. Whitcomb was awarded the Collier Trophy in 1955 for applying the principle to the Convair F-102 and the F11F Tiger, and the concept is now used in all transonic and supersonic aircraft design.
NACA director Hugh Dryden established the Special Committee on Space Technology on the 21st of November 1957, shortly after the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1. On the 1st of October 1958, NACA was dissolved and its 7,500 employees and $300 million in facilities were transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NACA operated Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia; Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at Moffett Field; the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory; and Muroc Flight Test Unit at what became Edwards Air Force Base. NACA's first wind tunnel was dedicated at Langley on the 11th of June 1920, and by late 1942 a 16-foot tunnel at Moffett had reached Mach 0.75.