1948

Categories: 1948

1948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar).

Years:
1945 1946 1947 - 1948(MCMXLVIII) - 1949 1950 1951

Decades:
1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s

Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1948 by topic:
Arts	Architecture - Art - Film - Literature - Music - Television
Science and technology	Archaeology - Aviation - Rail transport - Radio - Science
Countries	Australia - Canada - India - Ireland - South Africa
Other	Births - Deaths - Sport - State leaders - Religious leaders - Video gaming

1 Events
2 Unknown date
3 Births
4 Deaths
5 Nobel Prizes

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Events

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January-February

January 1 - Nationalisation of UK railways to form British Railways. Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. First day of the Italian republican constitution.
January 4 - Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
January 5 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl).
January 17 - Truce between nationalist Indonesian and Dutch troops in Java
January 26 - Teigin poison case - Man masquerading as a doctor poisons 12 out of 15 bank employees of the Tokyo branch of Imperial Bank and takes the money; artist Sadamichi Hirasawa is later sentenced for the crime.
January 30 - Indian pacifist and leader Mahatma Gandhi is murdered by a Hindu extremist.
January 30 - 1948 Winter Olympics open in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
February 1 - Soviet Union begins to jam Voice of America broadcasts.
February 4 - Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth. King George VI becomes King of Ceylon.
February 18 - Eamon de Valera, head of government since 1932, loses power to an opposition coalition. John A. Costello is appointed Taoiseach of Éire (formerly called the Irish Free State) by President O'Kelly.
February 24 - The Communist Party seizes control of Czechoslovakia.

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March-April

March 8 - The United States Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools violated the Constitution.
March 10 - Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk killed in fall from a window of his apartment in Praque. Later communist government rules it "suicide".
March 17 - Hell's Angels founded in California
March 20 - First elections in Singapore
April 1 - Faroe Islands receive autonomy from Denmark
April 3 - President Harry Truman signs the Marshall Plan which authorizes $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
April 7 - The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
April 7 - Buddhist monastery burns in Shanghai - 20 monks dead
April 9 - Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's assassination provokes a violent riot in Bogotá (the Bogotazo), and a further ten years of violence in all of Colombia (La violencia).
April 9 - The Deir Yassin massacre takes place in Palestine.

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May

Image:Israel flag large.png

Flag of the newly created state of Israel

May 1 - 213 communists executed in Greece.
May 2 - Hour of Charm's last broadcast.
May 11 - Luigi Einaudi becomes president of Italy.
May 14 - Israel is declared as an independent state.
May 14 - The murder of a three-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 - Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attack 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 30 - A dike along the Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. 15 people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.

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June-July

June 3 - Palomar Observatory telescope finished in California.
June 16 - Communist guerillas kill three rubber planters in Malaya.
June 16 - Three armed men hijack Cathay Pacific passenger plane Miss Macao and shoot the pilot. The plane crashes - one of 27 survives
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 - State of Emergency declared in Malaysia for communist insurgency - Malayan Emergency begins.
June 21 - The Deutsche Mark becomes official currency of the Federal Republic of Germany.
June 24 - Cold War: The Berlin Blockade begins.
June 28 - Cominform Resolution marks the beginning of the Informbiro period in Yugoslavia and Soviet/Yugoslav split.
July 5 - British National Health Service Act enacted.
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 - Attempted assassination of Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, incites number of strikes all over the country.
July 15 - First London, England chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous
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 - Great oil fire in the harbor of Naantali, Finland
July 26 - U.S. President signs Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States Armed Forces.
July 31 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.