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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 Truman (1884-1972) makes the first-ever televised presidential address from the White House, asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans. At the time of Truman's food-conservation speech, Europe was still recovering from World War II and suffering from famine. Truman, the 33rd commander in chief, worried that if the U.S. didn't provide food aid, his administration's Marshall Plan for European economic recovery would -
• Transistor is invented, spurring growth in computers and electronics
The first transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories. It later made possible the integrated circuit and microprocessor that are the basis of modern electronics. Although video was possible with vacuum tube equipment, as was the case with the Ampex VRX-1000, without the transistor video products would never have gotten very small. -
President Eisenhower and Congress add the words “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance
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
Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis,[1] with most of the victims children. The "public reaction was to a plague", said historian William O'Neill. "Citizens of urb -
• The first nuclear power plant in the U.S. goes online at Shippingport, Pa.
The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, "the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses," (though the British Magnox reactor at Calder Hall was first connected to the grid on 27 August 1956, it also produced plutonium for military uses)[1] 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. The reactor went online December 2, 1957, an -
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
