January 30, 1948. Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi is assassinated by a fanatical Hindu man while Gandhi is a prayer meeting in New Delhi. All India mourns.
February 25, 1948. Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia.
May 14, 1948. Jewish leaders Chaim Weitzmann and David Ben-Gurion declare the independence of the new Jewish state of Israel.
June 23, 1948. The Soviet Union blockades road and rail links to the city of Berlin located inside the Soviet zone of Germany. On June 30, U.S. planes, carrying supplies for besieged Berlin, land in the city delivering 2500 tons of much-needed food.
June, 1948. Columbia Records introduces the first long-playing commercial vinyl records.
July 1, 1948. Yugoslav Communist Marshal Tito provokes the Soviet Union into expelling Yugoslavia from the Cominform (the international organization of communist parties) in Tito’s determination to remain independent from Soviet control.
August, 1948. The Republic of South Korea is proclaimed in Seoul with Syngham Rhee as president.
September, 1948. Communist leader Kim Il Sung proclaims the People’s Republic of North Korea in Pyongyang.
October 22, 1948. Chester Carlson and Haloid Corporation announce the invention of “xerography”, electrophotography. Haloid Corp. will change its name later to Xerox Corp., and it will be 1960 before the first commercial automatic copier is released by Xerox.
December, 1948. In Switzerland, Georges de Mestral invents Velcro, a new clothes fastener.
Great post. I imagine lots of folks can relate to the history from having been there. I was a tot living in West Germany during the Berlin Airlift—my dad was stationed in Marburg at the time. I also remember the vinyl LPs—we took half a dozen or so to La Paz, Bolivia in 1954 when I was six years old. I still remember listening to the music on the old phonograph as that was the only electronic entertainment we had.
Sounds like a busy year. lol. Seems Velcro and Xerox are the only things that have stuck around.