While trying to track down a source of electrical interference on telephone transmissions, Karl Guthe Jansky of Bell Telephone Laboratories discovers radio waves emanating from stars in outer space.

Working at the research facilities at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. William Bennett Kouwenhoven develops a device for jump-starting the heart with a burst of electricity.

Skiers no longer have to climb hills to enjoy their sport. Engineers from the Union Pacific Railroad build a chair lift for the Dollar Mountain resort in Sun Valley, ID. Dollar Mountain follows with an order for six more.

A team of researchers working under Wallace H. Carothers at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company invents a plastic that can be drawn into strong, silk-like fibers. Nylon will soon become popular as a fabric for hosiery and industrial applications such as cordage. The synthetic fiber boom has begun.

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry of Iowa State College complete the prototype of the first digital computer. It can store data and perform addition and subtractions using binary code. The next generation of the machine will be abandoned before it is completed due to the onset of World War II.

Karl K. Pabst of the Bantam Car. Co., Butler, PA produces a four-wheel drive vehicle that will become famous as the jeep. Given its name by its military designation, G.P., or general purpose, the jeep will be used for numerous transport applications throughout World War II, and will become a popular domestic vehicle after the war.

A team working under Italian refugee Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago produces the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. This experiment and others, collectively known as the Manhattan Project, will result in the development of the atomic bomb.

J.R. Oppenheimer, Arthur H. Compton, Enrico Fermi and Léo Szilard detonate the first atomic bomb at the Los Alamos Lab near Santa Fé, NM. Following the tests, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, two bombs were dropped, one at Hiroshima, one at Nagasaki, claiming more than 100,000 lives.

Dr. Edwin H. Land introduces a new camera, which can produce a developed photographic image in sixty seconds. Land will follow in the 1960's with a color model, and eventually receive more than 500 patents for his innovations in light and plastics technologies.

Leo Fender launches the guitars that built rock and roll when he debuts his Broadcaster solid-bodied electric guitar. Later renamed the Telecaster, the guitar will become a favorite with guitar slingers worldwide.

The Eckert and Mauchly Computer Co. of Philadelphia sells the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC 1 to the US Census Bureau. The memory called up data by transmitting sonic pulses through tubes of mercury. An addition 45 UNIVAC 1 machines would eventually be sold.

Dr. John H. Gibbon performs the first successful open heart surgery in which the blood is artificially circulated and oxygenated by a heart-lung machine. This new technology, which allows the surgeon to operate on a dry and motionless heart, greatly increases surgical treatment options for heart defects and disease.

The Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, revolutionizes naval warfare. Conventional submarines need two engines; a diesel engine to travel on the surface, and an electric engine to travel submerged, where oxygen for a diesel engine is not available. The Nautilus, the first nuclear sub, can travel many thousands of miles below the surface with a single fuel charge.

Dr. Albert Sabin develops a polio vaccine using strains of polio too weak to cause infection but strong enough to activate the human immune system. His invention will put an end to the polio epidemics that have crippled thousands of children worldwide.

Three months after the Soviet Union began the Space Age by launching Sputnik, the US responds by sending the Explorer I satellite into orbit. Explorer I's mission is to detect radiation; it discovers one of the Van Allen radiation belts.