-
Period: to
Post war years at home
-
• 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 (seated at Brattain's laboratory bench), John Bardeen (left) and Walter Brattain (right). 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. -
• 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. -
• Polio vaccine announced to the world by Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Thomas Francis.
Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat poliomyelitis (or polio). The first was developed by Jonas Salk and first tested in 1952. Announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955, it consists of an injected dose of inactivated (dead) poliovirus. -
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 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (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. Since February 2006, NASA's mission statement has been to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." [5] On September 14, 2011, NASA announced that it had selected the design of a new Space Launch System that it said would take the agency's astro
