Events 
 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.

Births 
 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
 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 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

Deaths 
 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)

Movies Released
 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
 Scott of the Antarctic

New Books 
 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

Hit Songs 
 "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