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Chapter 27 The Postwar Years at Home Kimberly Fonseca
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Harry Truman first president to adress 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. Truman was not the first president to appear on television. President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast on a compact black-and-white screen from the New York World’s Fair on April 30, 1939. -
Transistor is invented
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. -
Eisenhower and Congress add "Under God" to Pledge of Allegiance
In 1954, Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the next year it required the phrase “In God We Trust” to appear on all American currency. Like other aspects of American life, religion became more commercial.Louis A. Bowman was the first to initiate the addition of "under God" to the Pledge. The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution gave him an Award of Merit as the originator of this idea. -
Polio Vaccine
In 1954, Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Thomas Francis conducted a successful field test of a vaccine to prevent one of the most feared diseases polio. Before the vaccine polio, had killed or disabled more than 20,000 children in the United States every year. Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered the effects of polio throughout much of his life. The announcement of the polio vaccine was made on the tenth anniversary of Franklin's death. -
The first nuclear power plant in the U.S. goes online at Shippingport, Pa.
On December 2,1957 the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, 25 miles outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came online and became the “world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses.” Created to meet President Dwight Eisenhower’s goals for commercial nuclear power generation, as outlined in his Atoms for Peace plan, the plant’s reactor first went critical on this day at 4:30 AM, power generation began six days later, and full power was achieved on Dec 23. -
NASA is established
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, many Americans grew concerned that the United States was losing its competitive edge. Others feared a nuclear attack would soon follow. DSo NASA was created. NASA is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research.
