Modern Era · North America · Technology
1947
Transistor invented at Bell Labs
December 23, 1947
In a New Jersey lab, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley demonstrated a tiny germanium device that could amplify and switch electric current without vacuum tubes. Nobody outside the lab much noticed. Within twenty years the transistor would be shrinking into integrated circuits and turning the computer from a room into a chip.
In context
Also in 1947 (7 other events on record)
- India and Pakistan gain independence · South Asia · Politics
- Indian Independence and Partition · South Asia · Politics
- Truman Doctrine declares Cold War · North America · Politics
- Marshall Plan announced · North America · Politics
- Dead Sea Scrolls discovered · Middle East · Religion
- Jackie Robinson breaks baseball color line · North America · Culture
Before and after in North America
Before and after in Technology
Era
Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.