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• Harry Truman becomes the first president to address the nation on TV from the White House
In this broadcast, President Truman asked Americans to cut back on grain usage to help the starving Europeans. During this time, Europe was suffering from famine and was recovering from WW2. He also asked the public to forgo meats on tuesdays -
Transistor is invented
From November 17, 1947 to December 23, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Labs in the United States, performed experiments and observed that when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input.[8] Solid State Physics Group leader William Shockley saw the potential in this, and over the next few months worked to greatly expand the knowledge of semiconductors. The term transistor was coined by Jo -
Under god added to the pledge
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of loyalty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy (1855-1931) in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942.[1] The Pledge has been modified four times since its composition, with the most recent change adding the words "under God" in 1954.
Congressional sessions open with the recital of the Pledge, as do government meetings at -
Polio vaccine announced to the world by Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Thomas Francis..
"Safe, effective, and potent."
With these words on April 12, 1955, Dr. Thomas Francis Jr., director of the Poliomyelitis Vaccine Evaluation Center at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, announced to the world that the Salk polio vaccine was up to 90% effective in preventing paralytic polio.
Dr. Francis made the announcement to a crowd of scientists and reporters at the University of Michigan's Rackham Auditorium, concluding his two-year national field trials of the poliomyeliti -
• The first nuclear power plant in the U.S. goes online at Shippingport, Pa.
The Shippingport powert plant was the first aatomic power plant in the US, It is located in Beaver county, about 25 miles from Pittsburgh. It went onlime December 2, 1957. Most modern reactors are 1,100 Mwe while Shippingports was 60Mwe. It was decomissioned in 1982 where it was dismantled and the reactor was sent to Washington state for burial. -
Nasa is Established
NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The agency became operational on October 1, 1958.[9][10] U.S. space exploration efforts have since been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpo
