On the recordJanuary 23, 1995
we live in an era of technological miracles--inventions, phenomena, and developments whose inventors and initiators might have been burned at the stake as witches and warlocks in the so-called ``Dark Ages'' for even suggesting, much less producing or conducting, such things. Automobiles, jet aircraft, space vehicles, CD records, microwave ovens, telephones, artificial hearts, organ transplants--inventions, opportunities, and creations that some of our ancestors only a century ago might have found unbelievable, if not unimaginable. But, Mr. President, perhaps the one modern invention that has had, and will have, the greatest impact on human life is television. Imagine, if you will, the astonishment of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or even Benjamin Franklin if any one of those men were able to sit down with us today in front of that vast wasteland, as Newton Minow referred to it--a television set.
Source
govinfo.gov
