What happened in 1947?

Bell Labs scientists build the first transistor

On 16 December 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, working in William Shockley's group at Bell Labs in New Jersey, built the first transistor, a tiny device that could amplify electrical signals. It replaced bulky vacuum tubes. Billions of transistors now fill every computer chip and phone, and the three men shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Kon-Tiki raft sets sail across the Pacific

On 28 April 1947, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmates set sail from Peru on Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa logs. After 101 days and about 7,000 km, they reached Polynesia, showing that ancient peoples could have made such voyages. The raft is in a museum in Oslo.

The first computer 'bug' is found

On 9 September 1947, engineers working on the Harvard Mark II computer found a moth trapped in one of its relays, causing an error. They taped it into the logbook as the 'first actual case of bug being found'. The programmer Grace Hopper helped make the story famous.

Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier

On 14 October 1947, the US Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager flew the rocket-powered Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, over the Mojave Desert in California. Many had feared aircraft would break apart at that speed. His plane was named Glamorous Glennis, after his wife.

The transistor is demonstrated

On 23 December 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, working in William Shockley's group at Bell Labs, demonstrated the first transistor. Smaller and more reliable than vacuum tubes, transistors became the building blocks of all modern electronics. Today's chips contain billions of them.

It is demonstrated at Bell Labs

Transistor invented