• June 10: Sails from Melbourne for England on the Talabot with Dame Pattie and daughter Heather.

"Menzies' diary and his long letters home to the family, record in detail what turned out to be a busy six months. It included trips to the Continent and to Canada and the United States. When he was half way through it all, on 5 October, he wrote for his brother Frank a summary of what he had been doing and how the remainder of the trip was shaping up.

As a health trip the journey so far has not moved entirely according to schedule because not only have I had a mass of more or less official meals to eat and visits to make, but I have also spoken probably fifteen times, have written about three articles for the English press and about seven for the Melbourne Herald group."
A W Martin, Robert Menzies A Life Vol 2 1944-1978, 1999 p 88.

• Dr Herbert Evatt, the Australian Minister for External Affairs, is elected President of the United Nations General Assembly.
• Australians become citizens of their own country, rather than subjects of the Crown of another country, the United Kingdom.
• Prime Minister Chifley's Commonwealth Bank Nationalization Act to nationalise the private banks is challenged and declared unconstitutional by the High Court in 1948 and by the Privy Council in 1949.
• Mass-production of the first Australian designed and manufactured car, the Holden, is launched by GMH at its Fishermans Bend plant. The Holden will cost £760. The car makers will over time employ thousands of workers in Australia.
• Master batsman Don Bradman retires from cricket with a Test average of 99.94.
• Ruth Park writes Harp in the South.

• The United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• The independent State of Israel is created under UN sanction; the first Arab-Israeli war occurs when Arab countries attack but are defeated.
• Mahatma Gandhi, India's spiritual leader, is assassinated.
• USSR withdraws from Allied Control Council and blockades West Berlin: Britain and America mount the Berlin airlift. The Cold War begins.
• Korea is divided into North and South Korea.
• World Health Organization (WHO) is established as part of the United Nations.