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Harry Truman becomes the first president to address the nation on TV from the White House
On this day in 1947, President Harry S. Truman delivered the first televised presidential address from the White House — to a limited audience. Television was still in its infancy: There were only about 44,000 TV sets in U.S. homes, concentrated in a few cities, compared with some 40 million radios. (Five days earlier saw the first telecast of a World Series game, pitting the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers.) -
Transistor is invented, spurring growth in computers and electronics.
In 1947, scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the first transistor, a tiny circuit device that amplifies, controls, and generates electrical signals. The transistor could do the work of a much larger vacuum tube, but took up less space and generated less heat. The transistor could be used in radios, computers, and other electronic devices, and greatly changed the electronics industry. Because of the transistor, giant machines that once filled whole rooms could now fit on a desk. -
President Eisenhower and Congress add the words "Under God" to the Pledge of Alligence
In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God," creating the 31-word pledge we say today. Bellamy's daughter objected to this alteration. -
Polio vaccine announced to the world by Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Thomas Francis.
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 poliomyelitis vaccine developed by his form -
The first nuclear power plant in the U.S. goes online at Shippingport P.A.
at Calder Hall was first connected to the grid on 27 August 1956, it also produced plutonium for military uses. It was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA, about 25 miles (40 km) from Pittsburgh. -
NASA is established
October 1, 1958, the official start of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was the beginning of a rich history of unique scientific and technological achievements in human space flight, aeronautics, space science, and space applications. Formed as a result of the Sputnik crisis of confidence, NASA inherited the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other government organizations, and almost immediately began working on options for human space fligh
