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Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
[edit] Events of 1948
[edit] January
[edit] February
- May 4 - Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet makes its world premiere in London.
- May 11 - Luigi Einaudi becomes President of the Italian Republic.
- May 14 - The Declaration of Independence of Israel is made.
- May 14 - 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.
- May 15 - 1948 Arab-Israeli War: The Mandate of Palestine is officially terminated by Britain; Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia enter Palestine and attack the nascent State of Israel .
- May 16 - Chaim Weizmann is elected as the first President of Israel.
- May 18 - The first Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convenes in Nanking.
- May 26 - The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 557, which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as the auxiliary of the United States Air Force.
- May 28 - Daniel Francois Malan defeats Jan Smuts and becomes Prime Minister of South Africa, ushering in the heinous era of apartheid, which is finally dismantled by F W de Klerk in 1994.
- 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 3 - The Palomar Observatory telescope is finished in California.
- June 16 - Communist guerrillas kill 3 rubber planters in Malaya.
- June 16 - Three armed men hijack the Cathay Pacific passenger plane Miss Macao and shoot the pilot; the plane crashes, with only one of 27 survives.
- June 11 - The first monkey astronaut, Albert I, is launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico.
- June 17 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Air Lines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
- June 18 - Malayan Emergency: A state of emergency is declared in Malaysia due to a communist insurgency.
- June 18 - The first democratic general election with universal suffrage is held in Italy.
- June 20 - The U.S. Congress recesses for the remainder of 1948, after an overtime session closes at 7:00 a.m. D.C. time (to be shortly interrupted by Truman's recall from Congressional recess for July 20, 1948).
- June 21 - The Deutsche Mark becomes official currency of the future Federal Republic of Germany.
- June 22- The ship Empire Windrush brings the first group of several hundred black immigrants to Tilbury near London from the Caribbean countries (the start of multiculturalism in Britain).
- June 24 - Cold War: The Berlin Blockade begins.
- June 24 - 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.
- June 28 - The Cominform Resolution marks the beginning of the Informbiro period in Yugoslavia and the Soviet/Yugoslav split.
- June 28 - 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 anti-Semitism in depicting master criminal Fagin, played by Alec Guinness.
- June 28 - An earthquake in Fukui, Japan kills 3,895.
- July 5 - The National Health Service Acts are enacted in United Kingdom.
- 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.
- July 13 - The Coptic and Ethiopian 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 15 - The attempted assassination of Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, incites 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).
- July 24 - A great oil fire breaks out in the harbor of Naantali, Finland.
- 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
- July 31 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
[edit] August
[edit] September
[edit] October
[edit] November
- November 2 - United States presidential election, 1948: Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats Republican Thomas E. Dewey and 'Dixiecrat' Strom Thurmond.
- November 12 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences 7 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.
- November 17 - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi divorces his second wife, the former Princess Fawzia of Egypt.
- November 20 - Geoffrey B. Orbell rediscovers the Takahē, last seen 50 years ago, near Lake Te Anau, New Zealand.
- November 24 - In Venezuela, president Rómulo Betancourt 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 capture their first Grey Cup and complete the only perfect season to date in Canadian Football.
[edit] December
[edit] Undated
- Brandeis University is founded.
- The Casimir effect is discovered by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.
- The Fresh Kills Landfill, the world's largest, opens in Staten Island, New York.
- Playwright Arthur Miller writes Death of a Salesman.
- The law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is founded.
- Miranda, the innermost moon of Uranus, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.
- The Oakridge Transit Centre opens in Vancouver, British Columbia.
- The RAND Corporation is established as a nonprofit policy research and analysis institution.
- The Slovak city Gúta is renamed Kolárovo.
- The Tunnel of Vielha is opened in the Aran Valley, Spanish Pyrenees.
- The Caspian Tiger becomes extinct in Kazakhstan.
- The Rhode Island Highlanders Pipe Band is founded.
- A pack of wolves kill roughly 40 children in the Darovskoye district in Russia. [3]
- OEEC is created.
- There are 5 million cars in Western Europe.
[edit] Ongoing
[edit] Births
[edit] January–February
- January 2 - Mary Archer, British scientist
- January 2 - Deborah Watling, British actress
- January 5 - Wally Foreman, Australian media icon (d. 2006)
- January 7 - Kenny Loggins, American rock singer (Footloose)
- January 10 - Donald Fagen, American rock keyboardist (Steely Dan)
- January 10 - Mischa Maisky, Latvian cellist
- January 12 - Kenny Allen, English footballer
- January 14 - T-Bone Burnett, American record producer and musician
- January 14 - Carl Weathers, African-American football player and actor (Rocky III)
- January 15 - Ronnie Van Zant, American rock musician (Lynyrd Skynyrd) (d. 1977)
- January 16 - John Carpenter, American film director and composer
- January 16 - Cliff Thorburn, Canadian snooker player
- January 17 - Davíð Oddsson, Prime Minister of Iceland
- January 19 - Frank McKenna, Premier of New Brunswick and Canadian Ambassador
- January 27 - Mikhail Baryshnikov, Russian-born dancer
- January 28 - Charles Taylor, Liberian president
- January 29 - Marc Singer, Canadian actor (V)
- January 30 - Paul Magee, Provisional Irish Republican Army member
- January 31 - Muneo Suzuki, Japanese politician
- February 1 - Elisabeth Sladen, British actress
- February 1 - Rick James, African-American musician (Super Freak) (d. 2004)
- February 2 - Ina Garten, American cooking author
- February 3 - Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, East Timorean Catholic bishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- February 4 - Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier), American hard rock singer and musician
- February 4 - Roedy Green, Canadian programmer and LGBT activist
- February 5 - Sven-Göran Eriksson, Swedish football manager
- February 5 - Christopher Guest, American actor, writer, director, and composer
- February 6 - Jack Conway, American musician, composer, arranger, and guitarist
- February 7 - Tony Iommi, English rock guitarist (Black Sabbath)
- February 10 - John Magnier, Irish businessman and thoroughbred racehorse breeder
- February 12 - Raymond Kurzweil, American inventor and author
- February 14 - Teller, American magician