1948

1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday in the Gregorian calendar.

• 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 – Éamon 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.
• Works begins on the Crazy Horse Memorial.
• May 13 – First Kashmir War between India and Pakistan
• April-May – Israel's independence day.

• January 9 - Asztalos Lajos, Hungarian politician and priest
• January 14 – Carl Weathers, actor
• January 14 – T-Bone Burnett, producer, musician
• January 16 – John Carpenter, director
• January 24 – Elliot Abrams, deputy national security adviser
• February 5 – Barbara Hershey, actress
• February 19 - Tony Iommi, English guitarist (Black Sabbath)
• February 20 – Jennifer O'Neill, actress
• March 6 - Stephen Schwartz, American lyricist
• March 12 - James Taylor, American folk guitarist
• March 22 – Andrew Lloyd Webber
• March 26 - Fodor Cseh, Hungarian politician and Shepherds
• March 26 - Steven Tyler, American singer (Aerosmith)
• May 5 - Bill Ward, English drummer (Black Sabbath)
• May 12 – Ivan Kral, Czech-American musician
• May 13 – Leon Coetzee, loverboy and attorney
• May 26 - Stevie Nicks, American singer (Fleetwood Mac)
• May 31 - John Bonham, English drummer (Led Zeppelin) (d. 1980)
• June 22 – Todd Rundgren, singer, songwriter, producer
• July 4 - Jeremy Spencer, English guitarist (Fleetwood Mac)
• July 8 - Raffi, Canadian children’s musician
• July 21 - Cat Stevens, English folk musician
• July 23 - John Hall, American singer-songwriter and musician (Orleans)
• July 30 – Jean Reno, actor
• August 5 - David Hungate, American bass guitarist (Toto)
• August 6 - Alan Howarth, American sound designer
• August 20 - Robert Plant, English singer (Led Zeppelin)
• August 30 – Victor Skumin, professor, philosopher, writer.
• September 20 - Chuck Panozzo, American bass guitarist (Styx)
• September 20 - John Panozzo, American drummer (Styx) (d. 1996)
• September 26 - Olivia Newton-John, Australian entertainer (d. 2022)
• September 29 – Theo Jörgensmann, German jazz clarinet player
• October 9 – Jackson Browne, songwriter
• October 17 – Margot Kidder, Canadian actress
• October 25 – Diana Burrell, English composer
• November 6 - Glenn Frey, American singer-songwriter and musician (Eagles) (d. 2016)
• November 14 - King Charles III, British monarch
• November 28 – Agnieszka Holland, Polish director and script writer
• December 3 – Ozzy Osbourne, singer/songwriter (Black Sabbath)
• December 10 - Abu Abbas, terrorist
• December 22 - Rick Nielsen, American guitarist (Cheap Trick)
• December 27 – Gérard Depardieu, French actor

• January 21 – Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, composer
• January 30 – Mohandas Gandhi, Leader of Indian Non-Violent Independence movement (assassinated)
• January 30 – Orville Wright of the Wright brothers, co-inventor of the airplane
• February 2 – Bevil Rudd, South African athlete
• February 11 – Sergey Eisenstein, movie director
• March 6 – Ross Lockridge, Jr., novelist
• March 10 – Zelda Fitzgerald (Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• March 10 – Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia
• March 31 – Egon Erwin Kisch, journalist and writer
• April 9 – Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian politician (b. 1903)
• April 17 – Suzuki Kantaro, Japanese admiral and prime minister
• May 15 – Father Edward J. Flanagan, priest, founder of Boys Town
• May 28 – Unity Mitford, British friend of Hitler
• June 25 – William C. Lee, Maj, General United States Army (b. 1895)
• July 23 – David Wark Griffith, movie director
• August 12 – Harry Brearley, inventor of stainless steel
• August 16 – Babe Ruth, Baseball Hall of Famer
• September 11 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah, first Governor-General and founder of Pakistan.
• October 24 – Franz Lehár, composer
• November 28 – D.D. Sheehan first independent Labour MP. in Ireland
• December 23 – Kenji Doihara, Koki Hirota, Seishiro Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Iwane Matsui, Akira Mutō, and Hideki Tōjō, Japanese war leaders (hanged)
• December 31 – Sir Malcolm Campbell, land and water racer (b. 1885)

• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
• Scott of the Antarctic

• Ape and Essence – Aldous Huxley
• Catalina – W. Somerset Maugham
• Concluding – Henry Green
• Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
• The Foundling – Georgette Heyer
• The Golden Warrior – Hope Muntz
• Guard of Honor – James Gould Cozzens
• The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
• The Hearth and the Eagle – Anya Seton
• The House of Sleep – Anna Kavan
• Ides of March – Thornton Wilder
• John Aubrey and His Friends – Anthony Powell
• Joseph and His Brothers – Thomas Mann
• Last Of The Conquerors – William Gardner Smith
• The Living Is Easy – Dorothy West
• The Mask of Circe – C. L. Moore
• Melissa (novel) – Taylor Caldwell
• My Glorious Brothers – Howard Fast
• The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
• Parris Mitchell of King's Row – Henry Bellamann
• Raintree County – Ross Lockridge, Jr.
• Seraph On The Sewanee – Zora Neale Hurston
• Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose – Dr. Seuss
• The Twenty-One Balloons – William Pène du Bois
• The White Goddess – Robert Graves
• The World is Not Enough – Zoe B. Oldenbourg
• The Young Lions – Irwin Shaw

• "Buttons and Bows" – Dinah Shore
• "Confess" – Doris Day & Buddy Clark
• "Confess" – Patti Page (the first multi-tracked song)
• "Deck Of Cards" – Phil Harris
• "Don't Have To Tell Nobody" – Frankie Laine
• "Gloria" – The Mills Brothers
• "I Love You So Much (It Hurts Me)" – The Mills Brothers
• "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" – Frankie Laine
• "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" – Art Mooney
• "I'm My Own Grandpa" – Guy Lombardo & The Guy Lombardo Trio
• "Is It True What They Say About Dixie" – Al Jolson & The Mills Brothers
• "It's Magic" – Doris Day
• "Little White Lies" – Dick Haymes & The Four Hits And A Miss
• "Love Somebody" – Doris Day & Buddy Clark
• "Mañana" – Peggy Lee
• "Monday Again" – Frankie Laine
• "My Happiness" – The Pied Pipers
• "My Happiness" – Jon and Sondra Steele
• "Nature Boy" – Nat King Cole
• "Nature Boy" – Sarah Vaughan
• "On A Slow Boat To China" – Kay Kyser, Harry Babbitt & Gloria Wood
• "Red River Valley" – Jo Stafford
• "Red Roses For A Blue Lady" – Vaughn Monroe
• "Rosetta" – Frankie Laine
• "So Tired" – Russ Morgan
• "Someday You'll Want Me To Want You" – Vaughn Monroe
• "The Things We Did Last Summer" – Georgia Gibbs
• "A Tree In the Meadow" – Margaret Whiting
• "Twelfth Street Rag" – Pee Wee Hunt
• "Underneath the Arches" – Andrews Sisters
• "What Could Be Sweeter" – Frankie Laine
• "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams" – Georgia Gibbs
• "Woody Woodpecker" – Kay Kyser
• "You Call Everybody Darlin'" – Al Trace
• "You Can't Be True, Dear" – Ken Griffin