January
1st	Nationalisation of UK railways occurs to form British Railways
1st	Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem
1st	First day of the Italian republican constitution
4th	Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom
17th	Truce between nationalist Indonesian and Dutch troops in Java
22nd	British foreign secretary 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
30th	Indian pacifist and leader Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse
30th	1948 Winter Olympics open in St. Moritz, Switzerland

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February
1st	Soviet Union begins to jam Voice of America broadcasts
4th	Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth. King George VI becomes King of Ceylon
18th	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
25th	The Communist Party seizes control of Czechoslovakia. This day was celebrated by the regime as the "Victorious February" until November 1989

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March
16th	The largest flood in the history of Brampton, Ontario occur
17th	Motorcycle group, The Hells Angels founded in California
20th	First elections are held in Singapore

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April
1st	Scientists Ralph Alpher and George Gamow publish the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper concerning the big bang
3rd	President Harry Truman signs the Marshall Plan which authorises $5 billion in aid for 16 countries
7th	The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations
7th	A Buddhist monastery burns in Shanghai leaving 20 monks dead
9th	Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's assassination provokes a violent riot in Bogotá, and a further ten years of violence in all of Colombia
24th	End of the Costa Rican Civil War
30th	The classic, Land Rover unveiled at Amsterdam Motor Show

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May
4th	Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet receives its world premiere in London
10th	Manchester United won The FA cup
11th	Luigi Einaudi becomes President of the Italian Republic
14th	Declaration of Independence of Israel
14th	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
15th	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
16th	Chaim Weizmann is elected as the first President of Israel
28th	Daniel Francois Malan defeats Jan Smuts and becomes Prime Minister of South Africa, ushering in the era of Apartheid which was finally dismantled by F W de Klerk 1994

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June
16th	Three armed men hijack Cathay Pacific passenger plane Miss Macao and shoot the pilot; the plane crashes - one of 27 survives
11th	The first monkey astronaut, Albert I, launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico
17th	A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Air Lines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board
18th	First democratic general election with universal suffrage in Italy
21st	The Deutsche Mark becomes official currency of the future Federal Republic of Germany
22nd	The ship Empire Windrush brings the first group of several hundred black immigrants to Tilbury near London from the Caribbean countries. This would be the start of multiculturalism in Britain
26th	William Shockley files the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor
28th	David Lean's Oliver Twist, based on Charles Dickens's famous novel, premieres in the UK. It will be banned for 3 years in the U.S. because of alleged anti-Semitism in depicting master criminal Fagin, played by Alec Guinness
28th	Earthquake hits Fukui, Japan killing 3,895

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July
5th	National Health Service Acts enacted in United Kingdom
15th	Attempted assassination of Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, incites number of strikes all over the country
20th	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)
28th	Around 200 die in explosion at a chemical plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany
29th	The Summer Olympics started in London, England (the first Olympics to be held since the 1936 games in Berlin, due to the outbreak of WW2)

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August
10th	Herrenchiemsee Convent prepares the draft for the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
15th	Establishment of the Republic of Korea
25th	House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: "Confrontation Day" between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss

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September
4th	Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicates for health reasons
5th	Robert Schuman becomes Prime Minister of France
6th	Juliana becomes Queen of the Netherlands
9th	The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is formally declared, with Kim Il-sung as prime minister
11th	Death of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Founder and first Governor General of Pakistan (b. 1876). Pakistan is in a state of shock as it mourns the departure of the father of the nation. The day is a public holiday nation-wide
12th	Invasion of the State of Hyderabad by the Indian Army on the day after the Pakistani leader Jinnah's death to assist damage control. Operation Polo led to the deaths of an estimated tens of thousands of Hyderabadi Muslims

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October
5th	The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake kills 100,000

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November
2nd	United States presidential election, 1948: Harry S. Truman defeats Thomas E. Dewey and Strom Thurmond for the US presidency
12th	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
15th	Louis Stephen St. Laurent becomes Canada's twelfth prime minister
16th	Operation Magic Carpet to transport Jews from Yemen to Israel begins
20th	Geoffrey B. Orbell rediscovers the Takahē (a rare flightless bird), last seen 50 years ago, near Lake Te Anau, New Zealand
24th	In Venezuela, president Rómulo Betancourt is ousted by a military coup. A military junta takes over the government

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December
10th	United Nations General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights
26th	Last Soviet troops withdraw from North Korea
30th	The play Kiss Me, Kate opens for the first of 1,077 performances
31st	Israeli troops drive Egyptians from Negev