Timeline

1948

A new world order began to emerge in 1948. The U.S. announced the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe, while a group of European nations formed an alliance that would evolve into NATO. The Berlin Blockade escalated tensions between the emerging superpowers. Israel became a Jewish state, and Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated less than a year after his country won independence from Great Britain. President Truman desegregated America’s military, while 42-year-old Negro League star Satchel Paige became Major League Baseball’s oldest rookie.

Jan

30

Crime

Gandhi assassinated

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu extremist on January 30, 1948.

Mahatma Gandhi's Funeral

Flower symbolizing transience the perishability of the body and affirming the beauty of real of immaterial imperishable values, covered the body of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi's face showed no trace of his violent death and looking at the serenity of his countenance one could almost imagine that he is listening with closed eyes to the scripture, which the Iskh priest is reading at left. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Bettmann Archive

Jun

26

Cold War

U.S. begins Berlin Airlift

On June 26, 1948, U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade.

Berlin Children Cheering Airlift Plane

A group of German children stand atop building rubble, cheering a United States cargo airplane as it flies over a western section of Berlin. American and British forces have been airlifting food and supplies after Soviet forces surrounded and closed off the besieged city.

Bettmann Archive

Dec

24

Inventions & Science

A family moves into the world’s first fully solar house

On Christmas Eve 1948, a family of three moves into a home in Dover, Massachusetts with unusually large windows—the world’s first fully solar house, an idea decades ahead of its time. Nobody had ever tried living in a residence heated only by the sun, much less through a frigid New England winter.

modern glass fronted house in snowy landscape

The south side of the “Sun House” in Dover, Massachusetts, December 1948. The world’s first fully solar-powered residence was designed by Dr. Maria Telkes, along with Boston architect Eleanor Raymond. It was built on the estate of sculptor and philanthropist Amelia Peabody.

Dan Goshtigian/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

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