October 5, 1947
In the first ever televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe. Truman worried that if the U.S. didn’t provide food aid his administration’s Marshall Plan for European economic recovery would fall apart. Ultimately, the Marshall Plan succeeded in helping to spur economic revitalization and growth in Europe. In 1947,television was still in its infancy and the number of TV sets in U.S. homes only numbered in the thousands.
