-
Period: to
postwar 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. 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. (Five days earlier saw the first telecast of a World Series game, pitting the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers.) -
Transistor is invented
A revolution has been taking place in electronics. Spurred by the invention of the transistor in 1947 and of the integrated circuit (IC) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, computers and other electronic devices have become smaller, cheaper, more powerful, and more versatile. The fruits of this revolution are all around us in the form of hundreds of inventions based on the IC: personal computers, robots, digital watches, video cassette recorders, CAT scanners, the space shuttle, and, alas, smart -
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. Bellamy's daughter objected to this alteration. Today it reads:
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." -
Polio vaccine announced
Jonas Edward Salk (October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to parents from Ashkenazi Jewish Russian immigrant families. Although they themselves did not have much formal education, they were determined to see their children succeed. While attending New York University School of Medicine, he stood out from his peers not just because -
First nucleur power plant
The world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. Produced plutonium for military uses. Shippingport was created and operated under the auspices of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, whose authority included a substantial role within the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Its design team was headed by Alvin Radkowsky. -
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
