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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. 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.
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. This was perhaps the most important electronics event of the 20th century, as it later made possible the integrated circuit and microprocessor that are the basis of modern electronics. -
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Chapter 27, The Postwar Years At Home
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President Eisenhower and Congress add the words “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
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.Proponents of including "under God” in the Pledge argue that the US is a Christian nation, at least 80% of Americans support the phrase, the language reflects America’s civic culture and is not a religious statement, and federal law, state constitutions, currency, and the presidential oath already contain references to God. -
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 poliomyelit. -
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." It also produced plutonium for military uses which was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County. Pennsylvania, USA, about 25 miles from Pittsburgh the reactor went online December 2, 1957. -
NASA is established
The United States Congress passes legislation formally inaugurating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The establishment of NASA was a sign that the United States was committed to winning the "space race" against the Soviets.In July 1958, was when Congress passed legislation establishing NASA as the coordinating body of the U.S. space program
