52 Ancestors – 52 Weeks

This week’s writing prompt from Amy Johnson Crow’s Generations Cafe is newsworthy. I was born in 1948 which is a L O N G time ago! I thought it would be fun to take a look back and see what was newsworthy then. Enjoy the read!

1948 EVENTS & FACTS

MAJOR EVENTS:

• Joan Mary Fitzgerald born November 1, 1948 to John J. Fitzgerald and Mary E. Flannery Fitzgerald at 6:23 p.m. in New London Hospital.

• Mahatma Gandhi assassinated in India
• House Un-American Activities Committee accuses Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union
• Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia
• U.S. Congress ratifies Marshall Plan, approving $17 billion in European aid
• State of Israel created; admits over 200,000 European war refugees
• Soviet Union seals off land routes to Berlin; West responds with massive airlift of provisions
• President Harry S Truman re-elected in upset over Thomas E. Dewey
• President Truman integrates the U.S. Armed Forces

BUSINESS & ECONOMY:

• U.S. continues to cope with severe postwar inflation while rocked by labor unrest
• United Auto Workers succeed in linking wage increases to cost-of-living index in contract with General Motors
• Congress enacts federal rent controls

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

• Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is the first large-scale study of individuals’ sexual habits, with stunning revelations about infidelity, homosexuality and other issues
• U.S. government conducts extensive missile tests in New Mexico desert
• 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar begins operation
• Cortisone introduced as an arthritis treatment
• “Big bang” theory of the universe’s origin postulated
• Orville Wright dies

SPORTS:

• World Series: Cleveland over Boston, 4-2
• Olympics held in London
• “Citation” wins Preakness, Belmont and Kentucky Derby
• Boxer Joe Louis retires
• Babe Ruth dies

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

• Movies: Hamlet, Macbeth (Orson Welles), The Naked City, Oliver Twist, The Fallen Idol
• Songs: Nature Boy, Buttons and Bows, All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth
• TV Shows: Howdy Doody, Philco TV Playhouse, Toast of the Town, Kraft Television Theatre, Meet the Press

• Books: The Big Fisherman, Lloyd C. Douglas; Crusade in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower; Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton; The Ides of March, Thorton Wilder; Tales of the South Pacific, James Michener; The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
• Long-playing (33-1/3 RPM) record invented
• Boxing and wrestling are TV’s prime attractions

EVERYDAY LIFE:

• Selective Service inaugurated, providing a continuous peacetime military draft until repealed in 1973
• New York’s Idlewild Airport opens (renamed JFK Airport in 1963)
• Swiss outdoorsman George de Mestral invents Velcro
• Noted food critic Duncan Hines founds a company to make prepackaged cake mixes

FUN FACTS:

• Popcorn sold on a mass scale for the first time
• “Scrabble” introduced

MAJOR NEWS STORIES INCLUDE:

• Porsche is founded
• Technology advances include Random Access Storage Device, Long Playing Record (LPN), Velcro and Transistor Radio
• Apartheid begins in South Africa
• NASCAR holds its first race for modified stock cars at Daytona Beach
• West Berlin Soviet Blockade
• NHS Created in UK
• Israel is declared as an independent state

1948 Slowly the fashions were becoming more daring with the bikini gaining in popularity slowly and the first prefab post war housing to solve housing shortages were starting to appear both in Europe and the USA as they could be built quickly to accommodate the growing need and were cheap to build and for people to buy, the quality was not great but they did enable the baby boom after the war years by providing young couples with a home to start their family. In Europe the cold war took a new turn when the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin in Germany on June 24th and the US countered with an 11 month airlift of food and supplies. Also due to demand and inflationary pressure prices rose and many believed that governments should bring back some price controls. And televisions are appearing in more and more homes.

HOW MUCH THINGS COST IN 1948:

• Yearly Inflation U.S.A. 7.74%

• Average cost of new house $7,700.00
• Average wages per year $2,950.00
• Cost of a gallon of gas 16 cents
• Average cost of a new car $1,250.00
• Loaf of bread 14 cents
• LB of hamburger meat 45 cents
• Science and Mechanics Magazine 20 cents
• Movie ticket 60 cents

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN IN 1948 (in addition to Joan Fitzgerald):

John Ritter, Glenn Frey, Prince Charles, Alice Cooper, Al Gore, Samuel L. Jackson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Olivia Newton-John, Ozzy Osborne, Donna Summer, James Taylor, Donna Summer, James Taylor

John Ritter, Glenn Frey, Prince Charles, Alice Cooper , Al Gore, Samuel L. Jackson, Andrew Lloyd Webber,
Olivia Newton-John, Ozzy Osbourne, Donna Summer, James Taylor, Donna Summer, James Taylor

Source: Baby Boomers: News Your Way

https://www.babyboomers.com/1948#:~:text=MAJOR%20EVENTS%3A,%2417%20billion%20in%20European%20aid