The first commercially built U.S. computer The UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) is sold to the United States Census Bureau costing about US $159,000. This computer was built by Remington Rand and had been designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC ( 1947 )( the first general-purpose electronic computer ) known as the "Giant Brain". These computers did not use Transistors or micro chips but vacuum tubes ( Similar to what you find in old TV's from the fifties ) and were the size of a small house ( 680 Sq ft.

The Mississippi River reaches its peak level in St. Louis during a record 77-day flood. During the flooding 33 died and and millions of acres of farm land were unusable for a full year following the flood, also because the area's affected were in a known flood plain many residents had no insurance and lost everything they had worked for, this is also why the 33 died as they refused to evacuate the area.