England. September 20 – The city of Rabwah is established in Pakistan. September 27 – Alger Hiss files a slander suit against Whittaker Chambers, for his August 27 radio statement in the United States. September 29 – Laurence Olivier's film of Hamlet opens in the U.S. October October 5 – The International Union for the Protection of Nature (later known as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN) is established in Fontainebleau, France. October 6 – 1948 Ashgabat earthquake: A 7.3 earthquake near Ashgabat, Soviet Turkmenistan kills 10,000–110,000. October 10 – The R-1 missile on test becomes the first Soviet launch to enter space. October 16 – The 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago, the oldest juried art fair in the American Midwest, is founded. October 20 – Brandeis University is formally founded in Massachusetts. October 26 – Donora Smog of 1948: A killer smog settles into Donora, Pennsylvania. October 29 – 1948 Arab–Israeli War: Massacres of Palestinian Arab villagers by the Israel Defense Forces: Al-Dawayima massacre: Between 30 and 145 are killed. Safsaf massacre: At least 52 are killed. October 30 – A luzzu fishing boat overloaded with passengers capsizes and sinks in the Gozo Channel off Qala, Gozo, Malta, killing 23 of the 27 people on board. November November 1 The Foley Square trial of Eugene Dennis and ten other CPUSA leaders begins, in New York City. Athenagoras I is elected the 268th Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. A boiler and ammunition explosion aboard a merchant ship evacuating troops of the Republic of China Army from Yingkou, China for Taiwan causes thousands of deaths. November 2 – 1948 United States presidential election: Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats Republican Thomas E. Dewey, "Dixiecrat" Strom Thurmond, and Progressive party candidate Henry A. Wallace. November 12 – In Tokyo, 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. November 15 – Louis Stephen St. Laurent becomes Canada's 12th prime minister. November 16 Operation Magic Carpet to transport Jews from Yemen to Israel begins. The University of the Andes (Universidad de los Andes) is founded in Bogotá, Colombia. November 17 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi divorces his second wife, the former Princess Fawzia of Egypt. Whittaker Chambers produces secret government papers, handwritten and typewritten by Alger Hiss, during pretrial examination. November 20 – Geoffrey B. Orbell