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PERFORMANCE
has built our business...®
1948
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| 1948 |
BENCHMARK PROJECTS
In anticipation of cable TV, Henkels & McCoy is awarded the contract for installation of a coaxial television subway system in Everett Pa. and in Ligonier, Pa. by AT&T.
Henkels & McCoy is also involved in a 72-acre flood protection project in Elmira, New York for the US Engineer District... We will also perform dam and levee work in Montour Falls, New York, Kingston, Pa., Williamsport, Pa. and in West Springfield, Mass. during the course of the following year... We also install approach light structures in the Potomac River for the expanding Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan International Airport) in Washington, DC. and camera stands for the US Navy at the Ordnance Testing Station in Chesapeake Bay, off Norfolk, Virginia... We execute bituminous paving projects for St. Luke's Hospital, Bethlehem, Pa., and for the School District of Philadelphia's Rhawnhurst School... An underground fire alarm system is installed for the City of Bethlehem... Never too busy to help a worthy cause, H&M constructs a timber crib gravity dam for the Boy Scouts of America's Camp Delmont in Sumneyville, Pennsylvania.
January 1
Britain nationalizes its railroad systems and forms British Railways.
 January 30
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (right), also known as Mahatma (Great-Souled, Wise) Gandhi, is shot to death on his way to evening prayers by a fellow Hindu, Nathuram Godsey. The 79-year old Gandhi was the founder of non-violent, passive resistance to injustice. Through his love of his people, his keen legal mind, and his high moral example, he was instrumental in finally ending British rule in his native India. However, the country divided itself into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan following independence and an atmosphere of hatred, distrust and sectarian killing enveloped the subcontinent. It was this atmosphere which led to the death of the beloved Mahatma.
January 30
Winter Olympics open, in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, respectively, took the most gold medals, followed by the US, Austria and Finland.
February 23-25
Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia (in a bloodless coup. Czechoslovakian President Benes resigns, and Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk is found dead a week later, reported as suicide.
 March 8
The United States Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.
April 1
The Soviet Union begins a land blockade of Berlin in the first major crisis of the Cold War, denying access to that city by road and rail. Berlin, the western portion of which is technically part of West Germany, is completely surrounded by communist controlled East Germany. In response, the US and Great Britain begin an immediate airlift of food and fuel to West Berlin, a policy which will last for nearly a full year.
April 2
Congress passes foreign aid bill including the Marshall Plan, which provides for European postwar recovery.
April 30
Organization of American States (OAS) Charter is signed in Bogota, Colombia.
 May 14
The state of Israel is proclaimed in the former British protectorate of Palestine. Neighboring Arab states attack May 15 and are repulsed. On May 16 Chaim Weizmann is elected as the first President of Israel. In the course of the war, hundreds of thousand of Palestinian Arabs are displaced. Right: Jewish refugees, only recently liberated from Nazi death camps in Europe, stream to Palestine in hopes of creating a Jewish homeland, in 1945.
May 26
South Africa embraces apartheid policies following election victory by the Nationalist Afrikaaner Party.
 June 28
Josef Stalin (center) and Josip Broz Tito (right) break diplomatic ties as Yugoslavia, under Tito, demands greater independence from hard line Soviet influence. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov is at left in this 1940s era photo.
July 5
Socialized medicine debuts in the UK as the British National Health Service Act is enacted.
July 20
President Truman issues the first peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union in eastern and central Europe.
 July 31
At Idelewild Field, New York International Airport, in Queens, New York is officially dedicated. It will be renamed in honor of President Kennedy in 1964.
August 16
George Herman "Babe" Ruth, legendary baseball player, dies. Photo: The Babe bids farewell to fans at Yankee Stadium.
November 2
Harry S. Truman is elected President.
November 12
An international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II, in Tokyo..
December 19
Philadelphia Eagles beat the Chicago Cardinals 7-0 in a blizzard for NFL championship.
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Also in 1948:
President Truman officially ends racial segregation in the US military.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is established under UN auspices.
Halfback Fred Gehrke paints rams horn designs on team helmets to become the first modern emblems in NFL history. In 2003, only the Cleveland Browns do not have an emblem or insignia on pro football uniform helmets.
Columbia Records introduces the "long playing" 33 RPM vinyl record.
 Polaroid Land Camera invented by US inventor Edwin Land.
Soviets design the MiG-15 jet fighter (right). It will make its surprise combat debut over Korea in 1950 against the US Air Force.
The Summer Olympics are held in London, the first games since 1936.
 At the movies:
We don’t need no stinkin’ badges! John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt. Laurence Olivier in Hamlet, I Remember Mama with Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes and Oscar Homolka Johnny Belinda with Jane Wyman, and The Snake Pit, where Olivia De Havilland deals with mental illness in a breakthrough film.
 Norman Mailer’s WWII epic, The Naked and the Dead is in the book shops.
Dinah Shore (left) leads the hit parade with "Buttons and Bows." Other hits this year include "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" by Art Mooney ,"Love Somebody" by Doris Day with Buddy Clark, "Manana" by Peggy Lee and "Nature Boy" by Nat King Cole.
Kiss Me Kate, a very loose musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew debuts on Broadway. Music and lyrics by Cole Porter.
Deaths this year include:
D.W. Griffith, film maker
Orville Wright, aviation pioneer
Father Edward J. Flanagan, priest, founder of Boys Town
Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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