1948
Selected Events
Computer Technology
- Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley create
first transistor
- Freddy Williams and Tom Kilburn, and Max Newman at the
the Royal Society Computing Laboratory at Manchester,
created the first working prototype, "Baby", of
a modern stored program computer.
- Norman Wiener writes
"Cybernetics, control and communication in the animal
and machine."
- J. von Neumann gives the first talk on cellular automata at the Hixon
Symposium, September 1948;
The General and Logical Theory of Automata", in Taub (1961),
chapter 9, pp. 288-328; and pp. 1-41 of
Jeffress (1951).
- Claude E. Shannon writes
"A Mathematical Theory of Communication"
-
Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) founded
Astronomy
200 inch
Hale telescope at Mt. Palomar is dedicated. Perhaps more important
is the completion of the 48 inch Schmidt telescope, the largest in the
world. The first picture taken in September is good enough that
it is used in Hubble's galaxy atlas. This telescope was used to make
the first Palomar
Observatory Sky Survey.
World Political Changes
North & South Korea, Burma, PR China, W Germany, and Israel
founded
and Soviet Union takes over Czechoslovakia and Hungary, but loses
Yugoslavia.
- Jan - Gandhi
assasinated
- Eastern Europe changes
- February 25 - Communist coup, Czechoslovakia: "Victorious February" (Vitezny
unor)
May 9 - constitution guaranteeing leading role for Communists
passed. Soviet "advisors" arrive.
- Hungary becomes a Soviet republic completely by mid-year.
- Tito criticizes Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary
and Yogoslavia is expelled from Cominform, the confederation of
Eastern European Communist Parties, 28 June.
- May - December - Israel founded
See also
additional
commentaries.
- April - World Health Organization founded.
- April - Burma founded.
- April -
Apartheid established in South Africa
- April - September -
West Germany founded
- April - Marshall
Plan (Economic Cooperation Act) became law.
And the
Free
University of Berlin is founded.
"Wahrheit, Gerechtigkeit, Freiheit"
- June - France agrees with London recommondation
for the creation of a German parlimnet. Independently,
the new
Deutsche Mark is established by Ludwig Erhard.
The allies announce the new currency in Berlin
as well, and in response, the Soviets close
the access routes to the city.
- August - The Berlin Airlift was
the amazing Allied response to the Berlin Blockade
begun by the Soviet Union in response to plans to establish West
Germany by the other Allies.
See also the Official U.S. State Department report, dated September 1948, titled "The Berlin Crisis: A Report on the Moscow Discussions, 1948." The document is U.S. State Department publication 3298, European and British Commonwealth Series 1.
- September - First
German
Parliamentary Council in Bonn
on 1 Sep 48.
BTW, in 1930, Cahncellor Bruening had to call for
new elections on 14 September.
This was the date
of Hitler's first stunning political victory.
- Sept -
Chairman Mao
establishes the
Northern China People's Government
after winning
several major battles
over the Kuomintang government.
- July -
US Army racially integrated as a result of
Presidential Executive Order 9981
- Oct -
B29 out of Robbins AFB in Georgia crashes
: resulting United States
vs. Reynolds case
establishes the right
of the US government to have "state secrets"
that cannot be exposed in court.
- UN Assembly adopts a
declaration
of human rights
and makes Genocide
an international crime
- 14 September 1948 Ground Breaking
Ceremony for the UN Building
-
First Congress of Europe in The Hague
-
Faeroes achieve home rule from Denmark.
Cultural
-
12" (30 cm) Long Play (LP) 33 1/3 rpm record introduced by Columbia.
- Frisbee invented
- Velcro invented
- Orwell publishes "1984" (in 1948 of course).
- Norman Mailer publishes The Naked and the Dead.
- First Nikon Camera
- Boris Pasternak begins writing "Dr. Zhivago".
- Nov - 1st Polaroid
camera for sale
- Adidas
and Puma founding brothers feud and start separate
business.
- Oscar-winning
The Third Man is written by Graham Greene and
shot in Vienna and London. Zither player
Anton Karas is discovered and creates the Harry Lime theme song.
US Culture Changes
Birthdays
Firsts and Records
On 12 September 1990, the treaty was signed reunifying East and West
Germany and on 14 September, the last of the travel restrictions
between East and West Germany ended - a British Airways
commercial flight was the last to use the air corridor
between East Berlin and West Germany, exactly 60
years later to the day.
14 September 1938 -
The first flight of Zeppelin LZ130 'Graf Zeppelin'.
<petrie@stanford.edu>
