1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
On this day in 1947, the first live television broadcast from the House Chamber occurred during the opening session of the 80th Congress. The two-hour broadcast appeared on a local television station and was transmitted to Philadelphia and New York. The broadcast captured the ritual of opening day ceremonies and concluded after Speaker Joseph Martin’s opening address. The House had adopted a rule that television broadcasts could not be made when members discussed legislative business in the chamber. President Harry Truman watched the proceedings on a special 10-inch television set installed in the Oval Office, in preparation for his own scheduled State of the Union message — the first to be televised — in the Chamber three days later. Broadcasts of committee hearings began a year later, with cameras becoming more common throughout the 1950s and 1960s. On March 19, 1979, C-SPAN went live with the first broadcast of a full House floor session, and seven years later live broadcasts of Senate proceedings began.
(U.S. House of Representatives/Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education)
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