1948 Wikipedia Summary

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January

• January 1
  • The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
  • The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect.
  • The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British Railways.
• January 4 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom, becoming an independent republic, named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President, and U Nu its first Prime Minister.
• January 5
  • Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl Game).
  • The first Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, is published in the United States.
• January 7 – Mantell UFO incident: Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of an unidentified flying object.
• January 12 – Mahatma Gandhi begins his fast-unto-death in Delhi, to stop communal violence during the Partition of India.
• January 17 – A truce is declared between nationalist Indonesian and Dutch troops in Java.
• January 22 – British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin proposes the formation of a Western Union between Britain, France, and the Benelux countries, to stand up against the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Brussels is signed March 17 as a consequence, a predecessor to NATO.
• January 26 – Teigin poison case: a man masquerading as a doctor poisons 12 of 16 bank employees of the Tokyo branch of Imperial Bank and takes the money; artist Sadamichi Hirasawa is later sentenced to death for the crime, but is never executed.
• January 29 – A DC-3 aircraft crash at Los Gatos Creek, near Coalinga, California, kills 4 US citizens and 28 deportees, commemorated in a protest song (Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)) by Woody Guthrie.
• January 30
  • Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Indian pacifist and leader Mahatma Gandhi is shot by Nathuram Godse in New Delhi.
  • The 1948 Winter Olympics open in St Moritz, Switzerland.
• January 31 – The British crown colony of the Malayan Union, Penang and Malacca form the Federation of Malaya.

February

• February 1
  • The Soviet Union begins to jam Voice of America broadcasts.
  • The Federation of Malaya is proclaimed.
• February 4 – Ceylon (later known as Sri Lanka) becomes an independent kingdom, within the British Commonwealth.
• February 11 – General Douglas Gracey becomes Commander-in-chief of Pakistan Army.
• February 16 – Miranda, innermost of the large moons of Uranus, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.
• February 18 – Éamon de Valera, Irish head of government from 1918 to 1932, loses power to an opposition coalition. John A. Costello is appointed Taoiseach by President Seán T. O’Kelly, until 1960.
• February 19 – The Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence convenes in Calcutta.
• February 21 – The United States stock car racing organization NASCAR is founded by Bill France, Sr. with other drivers.
• February 22 – The first of the Ben Yehuda Street bombings in Jerusalem kills between 49 and 58 civilians, and injures between 140 and 200.
• February 25 – 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état: Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia, cedes control of the country to the Communist Party, a day celebrated by that regime as “Victorious February” (Czech: Vítězný únor; Slovak: Víťazný Február) until November 1989.
• February 28
  • Accra Riots: Riots take place in Accra, capital of the British colony of Gold Coast, when a peaceful protest march by ex-servicemen is broken up by police, leaving several members of the group dead, among them Sergeant Adjetey, one of the leaders.
  • The 2nd Congress of the Communist Party of India convenes in Calcutta.

March

• March 8 – McCollum v. Board of Education: The United States Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools violates the U.S. Constitution.
• March 12 – The Costa Rican Civil War begins.
• March 17
  • The Treaty of Brussels is signed by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, providing for economic, social and cultural collaboration and collective self-defence.
  • The Hells Angels motorcycle gang is founded in California.
• March 18 – The Round Table Conference convenes in The Hague, Netherlands, to prepare the decolonization process for the Caribbean island of Aruba and the other Dutch Colonies. Aruba presents the mandate of the Aruban People for Aruba to become an independent country, under the sovereignty of the House of Orange, based on Aruba’s first state constitution presented officially since August 1947, and a (4th) member state of the future Dutch Commonwealth.
• March 20
  • Singapore holds its first elections.
  • Renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini makes his television debut, conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in an all-Wagner program in the United States.
  • The 20th Academy Awards Ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Gentleman’s Agreement wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.

April

• April – Children’s Supermart, as predecessor of toys and children relative retailer brand Toys “R” Us, is founded in Washington D.C., United States.
• April 1 – Physicists Ralph Asher Alpher and George Gamow publish the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper, about the Big Bang.
• April 3
  • United States President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, which authorizes $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
  • Jeju Uprising: Residents revolt on Jeju island, South Korea, eventually leading to the deaths of between 14,000 and 30,000.
  • Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is played on television in its entirety for the first time, in a series of concerts featuring Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the United States. The chorus is conducted by Robert Shaw.
• April 5 – 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: Haganah launches Operation Nachshon, provoking the 1948 Palestinian exodus.
• April 7– The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
• April 9
  • Jorge Eliécer Gaitán‘s assassination provokes a violent riot in Bogotá (the Bogotazo), and a further 10 years of violence (La Violencia) across Colombia.
  • The Deir Yassin massacre takes place, in British Mandatory Palestine.
• April 13 – The Hadassah medical convoy massacre takes place, in British Mandatory Palestine.
• April 16 – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is founded, as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC).
• April 18 – Italian general election, 1948:: The first democratic general election with universal suffrage is held in Italy. The Christian Democracy party achieves a majority over the Popular Democratic Front Communist-Socialist coalition.
• April 19
  • Burma joins the United Nations.
  • The American Broadcasting Company (otherwise known as ABC) begins television services, on WFIL-TV in Philadelphia (later WPVI-TV).
• April 22
  • Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: Battle of Haifa – Jewish paramilitary group Haganah captures Haifa from the Arab Liberation Army.
  • WTVR begins television services. WTVR is the first TV station south of Washington D.C., giving it the nickname “The South’s First Television station”.
• April 23 – First National Games of Pakistan held in Karachi.
• April 24 – The Costa Rican Civil War ends.
• April 30
  • The Organization of American States (OAS) is founded.
  • The English-built Land Rover is unveiled at the Amsterdam Motor Show.

May

• May – The RAND Corporation is established, as an independent nonprofit policy research and analysis institution, in the United States.
• May 9 – Solar eclipse of May 9, 1948: An annular solar eclipse is visible in Japan and South Korea, and is the 32nd solar eclipse of Solar Saros 137. This eclipse is very short, lasting just 0.3 seconds. The path width is just about 200 meters wide (approximately 218 yards).
• May 11 – Luigi Einaudi becomes President of the Italian Republic.

• May 14 – The Israeli Declaration of Independence is made. David Ben-Gurion becomes the first prime minister, a provisional position that will become formalized on February 14, 1949.
• May 15
  • 1948 Arab–Israeli War: The British Mandate of Palestine is officially terminated; expeditionary forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq invade Israel, and clash with Israeli forces.
  • The murder of a 3-year-old girl in Blackburn, England, leads to the fingerprinting of more than 40,000 men in the city, in an attempt to find the murderer
  • Australian cricket team in England in 1948: The touring Australians set an all-time first-class record, by scoring 721 runs in a day against Essex.
• May 16 – Chaim Weizmann is elected as the first President of Israel. New York City Fire Department Rescue 5 is founded for Staten Island.
• May 18 – The first Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convenes in Nanking.
• May 22 – The Soviets launch Operation Vesna, the largest Lithuanian deportation to Siberia.
• May 25 – The United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) is founded at Ellinwood Malate Church in Manila.
• May 26 – The United States Congress passes Public Law 557, which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as the auxiliary of the United States Air Force.
• May 28 – Daniel François Malan defeats Jan Smuts and becomes Prime Minister of South Africa, which starts in the era of apartheid (which is finally dismantled by F. W. de Klerk in 1994).
• May 29 – The Casimir effect is predicted by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.
• May 30 – A dike along the Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon, within minutes; 15 people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.

June

• June 1 – Puma, a global sports goods brand, is founded in Bavaria, West Germany, by Rudolf Dassler, having split from his brother “Adi“.
• June 3 – The Palomar Observatory telescope is finished in California.
• June 10 – Hasan Saka forms the new government of Turkey. (17th government; Hasan Saka had served twice as a prime minister)
• June 11 – The first monkey astronaut, Albert I, is launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico.
• June 15 – Chinese newspaper Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) is first published in Beijing, China.
• June 16 – Three armed men hijack the Cathay Pacific passenger plane Miss Macao and shoot the pilot; the plane crashes, killing 26 of 27 people on board.
• June 17 – United Airlines Flight 624, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing 43 and injuring 84 people on board.
• June 18
  • Malayan Emergency: A state of emergency is declared in the Federation of Malaya, due to a communist insurgency.
  • LP record – Columbia Records introduces its long playing 33+1⁄3 rpm phonograph format.
• June 20 – The U.S. Congress recesses for the remainder of 1948, after an overtime session closes at 7:00 a.m. (to be shortly interrupted by Truman’s recall from Congressional recess for July 20, 1948).
• June 21
  • The Deutsche Mark becomes the official currency of the future Federal Republic of Germany.
  • The Manchester Baby becomes the first stored-program computer to successfully execute a program.
• June 22
  • The ship HMT Empire Windrush brings a large group of Afro-Caribbean immigrants to Tilbury near London, the start of a large wave of immigration to Britain.
  • David Lean‘s Oliver Twist, based on Charles Dickens‘s famous novel, premieres in the UK. It is banned for 3 years in the U.S., because of alleged antisemitism in depicting master criminal Fagin, played by Alec Guinness.

• June 24
  • Cold War: The Berlin Blockade begins.
  • The first World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization is held in Geneva.
• June 26
  • William Shockley files the original patent for the grown-junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
  • The Berlin Airlift begins.
• June 28
  • The Cominform Resolution marks the beginning of the Informbiro period in Yugoslavia, and the Soviet/Yugoslav split.
  • The 6.8 M_w Fukui earthquake strikes Fukui, Japan; 3,769 are killed, 22,203 injured.
  • Lotte Group, a global conglomerate in Northeast Asia (South Korea and Japan), is founded.^{[citation needed]}

July

• July 5 – The National Health Service in the United Kingdom begins functioning, giving the right to universal healthcare, free at point of use.
• July 6 – The world’s first Air Car-ferry service is flown by a Bristol Freighter of Silver City Airways, from Lympne to Le Touquet across the English Channel.
• July 13 – The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Churches reach an agreement, leading to the promotion of the Ethiopian church to the rank of an autocephalous Patriarchate. Five bishops are immediately consecrated by the Patriarch of Alexandria, and the successor to Abuna Qerellos IV is granted the power to consecrate new bishops, who are empowered to elect a new Patriarch for their church.
• July 14 – The attempted assassination of Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, results in numerous strikes all over the country.
• July 15 – The first London chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous is founded.
• July 20 – Cold War:
  • President Harry S. Truman issues the second peacetime military draft in the United States, amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union (the first peacetime draft occurred in 1940 under President Roosevelt)
  • Eugene Dennis, William Z. Foster, and ten other CPUSA leaders are arrested, and charged under the Alien Registration Act.
• July 22 – The Dominion of Newfoundland votes to join Canada, after a referendum.
• July 26 – U.S. President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, ending racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces.
• July 28 – Around 200 die in explosion at a chemical plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
• July 29 – The 1948 Summer Olympics begin in London, the first since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
• July 31
  • At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
  • Elizabeth Bentley appears under subpoena before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the United States House of Representatives regarding Communist espionage; she implicates Whittaker Chambers.
• Claude Shannon publishes “A mathematical theory of communication” – the paper that laid the foundations for the field of “Information Theory” and all modern digital communications.

August

• August 3 – Whittaker Chambers appears under subpoena before the HUAC, and alleges that several former U.S. Federal officials were communists, including Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss.
• August 5 – Alger Hiss appears before the HUAC, to deny the allegations of Whittaker Chambers.
• August 10–23 – The Herrenchiemsee convention prepares the draft for the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.
• August 12 – Babrra massacre: About 600 unarmed members of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement are shot dead on the orders of the Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province, Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri, on Babrra ground in the Hashtnagar region of Charsadda District, North-West Frontier Province (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan.
• August 13 – Harry Dexter White and Donald Hiss refute allegations of Communism by Whittaker Chambers, before the HUAC.
• August 14 – 1948 Ashes series: Australian batsman Don Bradman, playing his last Test cricket match, against England at The Oval, is bowled by Eric Hollies for a duck; however, “The Invincibles” win the match by an innings and 149 runs, and The Ashes 4–0.
• August 15 – The southern half of Korea is established as the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
• August 17 – The HUAC holds a private session between Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers.
• August 18 – The Danube Commission is created by the Belgrade Convention (enters into force 11 May 1949).
• August 20 – Lee Pressman, Nathan Witt, and John Abt, represented by Harold I. Cammer, plead the Fifth Amendment, in response to allegations of Communism by Whittaker Chambers before the HUAC.
• August 23 – The World Council of Churches is established in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• August 24 – The first meeting of the charter members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) is held.
• August 25 – The HUAC holds its first-ever televised congressional hearing, featuring “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.
• August 27 – Whittaker Chambers states that Alger Hiss was a communist on Meet the Press radio.

September

• September 4 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicates for health reasons.
• September 5 – Robert Schuman becomes Prime Minister of France.
• September 6 – Juliana is formally inaugurated to succeed her mother, as queen regnant of the Netherlands.
• September 9 – The northern half of Korea is formally declared the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), with Kim Il-sung as prime minister.
• September 11 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan, dies. Pakistan is in a state of shock as it mourns the departure of the father of the nation. The day is a public holiday nationwide.
• September 13–18 – Indian annexation of Hyderabad (“Operation Polo”): The princely state of Hyderabad is invaded by the Indian Armed Forces in a “police action“, in the aftermath of Pakistani leader Jinnah‘s death. The Nizam of Hyderabad surrenders his state, which is amalgamated into the newly independent Dominion of India; thousands are killed as a result of this event.
• September 13 – Margaret Chase Smith is elected United States Senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House Of Representatives and the United States Senate.
• September 17 – Lehi members, also known as the Stern Gang, assassinate Swedish count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator in Palestine, in Jerusalem.
• September 18 – An inaugural motor race is held at Goodwood Circuit, West Sussex, England.
• September 20 – The city of Rabwah is established in Pakistan.
• September 27 – Alger Hiss files a slander suit against Whittaker Chambers, for his August 27 radio statement in the United States.
• September 29 – Laurence Olivier‘s film of Hamlet opens in the U.S.

October

• October 5 – The International Union for the Protection of Nature (later known as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN) is established in Fontainebleau, France.
• October 6 – 1948 Ashgabat earthquake: A 7.3 M_s earthquake near Ashgabat, Soviet Turkmenistan kills 10,000–110,000.
• October 10 – The R-1 missile on test becomes the first Soviet launch to enter space.
• October 16 – The 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago, the oldest juried art fair in the American Midwest, is founded.
• October 20 – Brandeis University is formally founded in Massachusetts.
• October 26 – Donora Smog of 1948: A killer smog settles into Donora, Pennsylvania.
• October 29 – 1948 Arab–Israeli War: Massacres of Palestinian Arab villagers by the Israel Defense Forces:
  • Al-Dawayima massacre: Between 30 and 145 are killed.
  • Safsaf massacre: At least 52 are killed.
• October 30 – A luzzu fishing boat overloaded with passengers capsizes and sinks in the Gozo Channel off Qala, Gozo, Malta, killing 23 of the 27 people on board.^[14]

November

• November 1
  • The Foley Square trial of Eugene Dennis and ten other CPUSA leaders begins, in New York City.
  • Athenagoras I is elected the 268th Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
  • A boiler and ammunition explosion aboard a merchant ship evacuating troops of the Republic of China Army from Yingkou, China for Taiwan causes thousands of deaths.
• November 2 – 1948 United States presidential election: Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats Republican Thomas E. Dewey, “Dixiecrat” Strom Thurmond, and Progressive party candidate Henry A. Wallace.
• November 12 – In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
• November 15 – Louis Stephen St. Laurent becomes Canada’s 12th prime minister.
• November 16
  • Operation Magic Carpet to transport Jews from Yemen to Israel begins.
  • The University of the Andes (Universidad de los Andes) is founded in Bogotá, Colombia.
• November 17
  • Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi divorces his second wife, the former Princess Fawzia of Egypt.
  • Whittaker Chambers produces secret government papers, handwritten and typewritten by Alger Hiss, during pretrial examination.
• November 20 – Geoffrey B. Orbell rediscovers the Takahē, last seen 50 years previously, near Lake Te Anau, New Zealand.
• November 24 – In Venezuela, president Rómulo Gallegos is ousted by a military junta.
• November 27 – The Calgary Stampeders defeat the Ottawa Rough Riders 12–7 before 20,013 fans at Toronto’s Varsity Stadium, to win their first Grey Cup, and complete the only perfect season to date in Canadian Football.

December

• December 1 – José Figueres Ferrer abolishes the army in Costa Rica, making it the first country in history to do so.
• December 2 – The United States House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenas and retrieves the “Pumpkin Papers” from the farm of Whittaker Chambers.
• December 6 – Richard Nixon displays microfilm from the “Pumpkin Papers” to the press.
• December 9 – The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Genocide Convention.
• December 10 – The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• December 11–12 – Malayan Emergency: Batang Kali massacre: Scots Guards shoot 24 Chinese villagers in Malaya.
• December 15 – The United States Department of Justice indicts Alger Hiss, on two counts of perjury.
• December 17 – The Finnish Security Police is established to remove communist leadership from its predecessor, the State Police.
• December 19 – In the American National Football League, the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Chicago Cardinals 7–0, to win the championship.
• December 20
  • Indonesian National Revolution: The Dutch military captures Yogyakarta, the temporary capital of the newly formed Republic of Indonesia.
  • American economist and former State Department official Laurence Duggan falls to his death, from the 16th story window of his Manhattan office.
• December 23 – Seven Japanese military and political leaders, convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, are executed by Allied occupation authorities, at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Japan.
• December 26
  • The last Soviet troops withdraw from North Korea.
  • Cardinal József Mindszenty is arrested in Hungary, and accused of treason and conspiracy.
• December 28 – A Muslim Brotherhood member assassinates Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi.
• December 30 – The musical Kiss Me, Kate opens for the first of 1,077 performances in New York City.
• December 31 – Arab-Israeli War: Israeli troops drive Egyptians from the Negev.

Date unknown

• The Fresh Kills Landfill, the world’s largest, opens on Staten Island, New York.
• The Slovak city Gúta is renamed Kolárovo.
• The Vielha Tunnel is opened, giving access to the Val d’Aran in the Spanish Pyrenees; at this time it is the longest road tunnel in the world.^[17]
• The Oakridge Transit Centre opens in Vancouver, British Columbia.
• The last recorded sighting is made of the Caspian tiger, in Kazakhstan.
• A pack of wolves kills about 40 children in Darovskoy District, in Russia.^[18]
• The last edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum is published in the Vatican.
• Charles Warrell creates the first I-Spy books in the United Kingdom.
• Rev. W. Awdry‘s third book, James the Red Engine, is published in the United Kingdom.
• Inspired by World War II fighter planes, Cadillac introduces the first automobile to sport tailfins.
• The inaugural 6 Hours of Watkins Glen sports car endurance race is held in the United States.