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Period: to
January 1, 1945- January 1, 1960
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• Harry Truman becomes the first president to address the nation on TV from the White House.
President Truman gave the first speech from the White House, although it was 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. His speech was to ask Americans to save food to help hard-pressed Europeans who were still recovering from the devastation caused by the war and threatened with a massive winter famine. -
• 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.
In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God," It created the 31-word pledge we say today. Some people objected this alteration, but more agreed with it. That was the last time the Pledge has changed. -
• Polio vaccine announced to the world by Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Thomas Francis.
Dr. Thomas declared the vaccine to be safe and effective on April 12, 1955. It was exactly ten years to the day after the death of President Roosevelt. Within minutes of Francis's declaration that the vaccine was safe and effective, the news of the event was carried coast to coast by wire services and radio and television newscasts. -
• The first nuclear power plant in the U.S. goes online at Shippingport, Pa.
It was called "the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses." The reactor went online December 2, 1957, and was in operation until October, 1982. The reactor was designed with two uses in mind: for powering aircraft carriers, and serving as a prototype for commercial electrical power generation. -
NASA is established
NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA replaced its predecessor on July 29, 1958, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
