1948

Events

• January 7 - The "Mantell UFO incident" occurs: Pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of an unidentified flying object.

• Miranda, innermost of the large moons of Uranus, is discovered by scientist Gerard Kuiper.

• The first monkey astronaut, "Albert I," is launched into space.
  (He died of suffocation during the flight.)

• Physicists Alpher and Gamow publish the "Alpher–Bethe–Gamow" paper, about the Big Bang theory.
  This paper argued that the Big Bang event would create hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements,
  all in the correct proportions to explain their abundance in the early universe.
  While the original theory neglected a number of processes important to the formation of heavy elements,
  subsequent developments showed that Big Bang nucleosynthesis is consistent with the observed constraints on all primordial elements.

Timeline
1947	1948	1949