* 1948 – Patrika Darbo, American actress

* 1948 – Marcello Lippi, Italian football coach

* 1948 – Jeremy Beadle, English television host ( d. 2008 )

* 1948 – Joschka Fischer, German politician, Vice Chancellor of Germany

* 1948 – Lois Reeves, American singer ( Martha and the Vandellas )

* 1948 – In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established.

* 1870 – Franz Lehár, Austrian composer ( d. 1948 )

* 1948 – Perry King, American actor

* 1948 – Alexander Onassis, American Greek socialite, son of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis ( d. 1973 )

* 1948 – Pierre Pagé, Canadian ice hockey coach and executive

* 1948 – John Mehler, American drummer ( Love Song )

* 1948 – Sgt.

* 1861 – Edith Roosevelt, American wife of Theodore Roosevelt, 27th First Lady of the United States ( d. 1948 )

* 1948 – Bill Campbell, American baseball player

* 1895 – István Barta, Hungarian water polo player ( d. 1948 )

* 1948 – Kathleen Battle, American soprano

* 1948 – Scott Powell, American singer ( Sha Na Na )

In 1948 Australia set new standards, completely outplaying their hosts to win 4 – 0 with one draw.

* 1948 – Andy Fairweather Low, Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist ( Amen Corner and Fair Weather )

* 1948 – Dennis Prager, American radio host and author

After 1890 came philosopher Josiah Royce ( 1855 – 1916 ), botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey ( 1858 – 1954 ), the Southern Agrarians of the 1920s and 1930s, novelist John Steinbeck ( 1902 – 1968 ), historian A. Whitney Griswold ( 1906 – 1963 ), environmentalist Aldo Leopold ( 1887 – 1948 ), Ralph Borsodi ( 1886 – 1977 ), and present-day authors Wendell Berry ( b. 1934 ), Gene Logsdon ( b. 1932 ), Paul Thompson, and Allan C. Carlson ( b. 1949 ).

On December 1, 1948, President José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica abolished the military of Costa Rica after victory in the civil war in that year.

Other more recent political figures educated at Columbia include U. S President Barack Obama, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former U. S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former chairman of the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U. S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr .. Dwight D. Eisenhower served as the thirteenth president of Columbia University from 1948 to 1953.

May 20 Republican Year 37 / 1948, Chiang Kai-shek's inauguration speech as the first President of the Republic of China in the new constitution of 1948

A new Constitution was promulgated in 1947, and Chiang was formally elected by the National Assembly as the first term President of the Republic of China on May 20, 1948.

In 1948, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University, a premier private university in New York.

While President Truman had begun the process of desegregating the Armed Forces in 1948, actual implementation had been slow.

* 1948 – Hermione Lee, President of Wolfson College, Oxford

In 1948, the year when the NP swept to power in whites-only elections on an apartheid platform, F. W. de Klerk's father, Johannes " Jan " de Klerk, became secretary of the NP in the Transvaal province and later rose to the positions of cabinet minister and President of the Senate, becoming interim State President in 1975.

The 1948 Constitution of Italy establishes the parliament, an executive branch ( cabinet ), headed by the Prime Minister ( also called President of the Council ), and an independent judicial branch headed by the ' Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura '.

* 1948 – Edvard Beneš resigns as President of Czechoslovakia rather than sign the Ninth-of-May Constitution making his nation a Communist state.

* 1948 – U. S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.

After World War II, several other forces were also leading the country toward increased equality for blacks, including their accelerated migration to the North, where their political clout grew, and President Harry Truman's desegregation of the military in 1948.

* 1948 – The Republic of China implements " temporary provisions " granting President Chiang Kai-shek extended powers to deal with the Communist uprising ; they will remain in effect until 1991.

* 1948 – Chaim Weizmann is elected the first President of Israel.

* 1948 – Chiang Kai-shek is elected as the first President of the Republic of China.

On 17 March 1948, President Harry S. Truman addressed European security and condemned the Soviet Union before a hastily convened Joint Session of Congress.

Following the end of World War II, ambassador-level diplomatic relationships between France and Burma were established in 1948, soon after the Burmese nation became an independent republic on January 4, 1948, as Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu as its first Prime Minister.

* 1948 – Al Gore, American politician, 45th Vice President of the United States and Nobel laureate

Kim Il-sung served as General Secretary of the WPK from 1948 until his death in July 1994, simultaneously holding the office of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and the office of President from 1972 to 1994.

* 1948 – Amadou Toumani Touré, President of Mali