Happy birthday to the King (Picture: Eddie Mulholland – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

When the now King Charles III was born on this date (November 14) back in 1948, his arrival would have signalled great changes to the world ahead.

With World War Two still fresh in the minds of the nation, his birth would’ve been a celebration, heralding the next generation of the House of Windsor, a grandson of the then-King George VI and son to Princess Elizabeth, who’d become the UK’s longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.  

However, the world Charles was entering was already undergoing seismic shifts of its own.

From the founding of North Korea to the ongoing Cold War, this is how the world looked when the heir to the throne was born…

Charles was the first son to the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip (Picture: INTERCONTINENTALE/AFP via Getty Images)

Murder of Mahatma Gandhi

Charles’ birth in November meant new life and new hope for the British Royal Family, but the world saw the shocking murder of Gandhi in January that same year.

Mahatma Gandhi, the anti-colonialist lawyer who helped lead India’s independence from the British Empire, was assassinated on January 30, 1948.

Gandhi was shot three times and killed in 1948 (Picture: Getty)

He was gunned down with three shots at the Birla House in New Delhi by Nathuram Godse, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh a right-wing Hindu political organisation.

Godse and his conspirator Narayan Apte were later hanged for their crimes in November 1949, despite Gandhi’s own sons pleading against the death sentence.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) was established

When diplomats met to form the United Nations in 1945, one of the things they discussed was setting up a global health organisation.

Three years later, on April 7, 1948, they did just that, establishing the WHO.

The UN decided they needed a world health organisation (Picture: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

We celebrate that date each year as World Health Day.

As per their website, WHO was created to be: ‘responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.’

Israel was announced an independent state

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been raging for decades now (with conflict around the region predating it even further) but a lot of the current trouble can be traced back to May 14, 1948.

On this date, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2000 years.

Today, conflict still rages despite both Jews and Arabs claiming Jerusalem as their capital city (Picture: Getty)

The news did not go down well. Even during Ben-Gurion’s announcement, reports state that distant gunfire could be heard as the Arabs and Jews fought following the withdrawal of the British Army earlier that day.

Violence escalated almost immediately afterwards. Egypt launched an air assault against the newly-created Israel that evening.

Despite this – and a blackout in Tel Aviv – the Jewish people celebrated the birth of their new nation, especially after United States formally recognised the Jewish state.

At midnight, the State of Israel officially came into being upon termination of the British mandate in Palestine. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first premier.

The NHS was created

A proud moment in British history happened in 1948 – the launch of the NHS.

On July 5, 1948, the National Health Service came into effect, though the seeds for the idea had been sown for many years predating this.

The NHS is a vital support for many in the UK (Picture: Getty)

For example, Dr Benjamin Moore, a Liverpool physician wrote about needing wider, fairer access to healthcare in his book ‘The Dawn of the Health Age’ in 1911.

His use of the term ‘National Health Service’ is one of the first recorded.

Sadly, as momentum grew, things like the First and Second World War meant that plans were pushed back. However, Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee came to power in 1945 and appointed Aneurin Bevan Health Minister, and both were determined to make it a reality.

It was Bevan who embarked on the campaign to bring about the NHS as we know it now.

Clement Attlee (L) and Aneurin Bevan (R) helped establish the NHS as we know it today (Picture: Meager/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

This project was said to be based on three ideas which Bevan expressed in the launch on July 5.

These three essential values were: that the services helped everyone, healthcare was free and finally, that care would be provided based on need rather than ability to pay.

The first Olympics since 1936 took place in London

The 1948 Summer Olympics were held from July 29 to August 14 in London.

Left to right: Prince Bernhard, Queen Mary, Earl of Athlone, Duchess of Gloucester, Mr Atlee, Mr Sigfrid Edstrom, The King, The Queen, Shah of Persia, Sir Frederick Wells, Princess Margaret, Duke of Gloucester and Lady Athlone at the 1948 Olympics (Picture: Daily Herald Archive/National Science & Media Museum/SSPL via Getty Images)

These Olympic Games were of particular significance because they were the first ones to be held in 12 years.

Normally held every four years, the hiatus was caused by the outbreak of the Second World War, with the last Games held in Berlin in 1936.

The 1936 Olympics were hugely controversial, having been held in Nazi Germany on the cusp of WWII (Picture: Getty Images)

Germany and Japan were excluded from the 1948 Games due to their roles in the war.

North Korea was founded

Formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, North Korea as we know it today was founded on September 9, 1948, when the United States and the Soviet Union divided control of the Korean peninsula after the Second World War.

Now a communist state shrouded in mystery from much of the rest of the world, North Korea came to be following the fallout of the war.

The Freedom bridge cross the Imjin river, being the only connector between North and South Korea and a former railway bridge to transport prisoners of war (Picture: Getty)

After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean peninsula into two zones along the 38th parallel, or 38 degrees north latitude.

In 1948, the Republic of Korea (or South Korea was established in Seoul, led by the strongly anti-communist Syngman Rhee. These were pro-US.

On the flip side, in Pyongyang in the north, the Soviets installed communist guerrilla Kim Il Sung, who became the first premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

With both leaders claiming rule over the Korean Peninsula, war was inevitable. In 1950, backed by the Soviet Union and China, North Korean forces invaded South Korea, setting off the Korean War.

The US came to the aid of the South, leading an army of over 300,000 United Nations troops in fighting the invasion.

After three years of fighting and over two million casualties on both sides signed an armistice in the Korean War in July 1953. While no formal peace treaty has ever been signed, the borders between the two have remained unchanged since.

Tensions remain to this day, with Donald Trump being the first US President to set foot in North Korea in history.

Nationalisation of railways

The 1948 nationalisation was followed by the modernisation plan of 1955, which committed £1.2 billion – around £30 billion in today’s money.

It included electrifying the main lines, replacing steam locomotives with diesel models, renewing the track, and closing certain smaller lines.

The four major rail companies were consolidated into British Railways in a nationalisation plan which didn’t quite work (Picture: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL/Getty Images)

Nationalisation came into effect because the trains were in a dire state. The Railways Act 1921 had consolidated over 100 operators into ‘the big four’ – Great Western; London, Midland & Scottish; London & North Eastern; and Southern Railways.

Due to a myriad of factors, including damage from bombings during the war and various rules and restrictions, the big four couldn’t afford to upkeep the network as it should’ve been.

Many point to two major accidents in the south and north of England within two days in October 1947, resulting in 60 fatalities as the final straw leading to nationalisation.

These accidents contributed to that year being the second deadliest in British railway history.

Therefore, on January 1, 1948 the ‘Big Four’ were merged as ‘British Railways.’

While nationalising healthcare with the NHS in 1948 was a success, doing the same for the rails weren’t a success at the time and led to great decline.

The rails were then privatised once again back in the 1990s.

Harry Truman won his second term as US President

President Truman served in office from 1954 to 1953 (Picture: Getty)

Held on Tuesday, November 2, 1948, President Truman pulled off what many historians agree was one of the greatest election upsets in American history.

As incumbent President, Harry S. Truman, the Democratic nominee, defeated Republican Governor Thomas E. Dewey.

Truman hadn’t previously been elected, despite this election win guaranteeing him a second term in office. The then Vice President Truman ascended to the presidency in April 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

His win was considered surprising because he had inherited an already shaky economy following the Second World War and the tensions with the Soviets during the Cold War.

Truman’s victory was a shock to many, especially the Chicago Daily Tribune (Picture: Getty)

Not to mention Dewey had much clout for being a tough prosecutor who helped put away several of America’s mobsters during the 1930s.

So convinced people were of Dewey’s win, a now infamous photo showed a newspaper headline reading ‘Dewey Defeats Truman,’ which the President gleefully posed with.

The first Kinsey Report was published

Considered either a sexual revolution or a slew of immoral filth depending on who you asked at the time, Alfred Kinsey’s first revelatory study into human sexuality was released in January 1948.

‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’ came out in 1948, with ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Female’ out in 1953.

Alfred Kinsey’s works shocked the world (Picture: Getty)

While hard to sum up in short, Kinsey’s study rocked American values because some of the key findings argued that sexuality was across a spectrum – not limited exclusively to heterosexual or homosexual binaries.

Other things reported in the studies found that nearly 46% of the male population had engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities, and other figures proved the commonness of things like sex before marriage, masturbation, and homosexuality.

Very shocking for the boomers in the 1940s and 50s.

What was Britain like in 1948?

Life in the UK was also different for Britons back home when Charles was born.

King George VI was on the throne and we used a different currency – shillings and pence.

In the old pounds, shillings and pence system, there were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pence in a shilling. A penny was divided into two halfpennies or four farthings. Two farthings made one halfpenny. 

The shilling was phased out of the British system of coinage beginning in 1971 (Picture: Getty)

According to the Hansard – the official transcripts of Parliament throughout the years – bacon would cost 2 shillings and 2 pence in 1948 and bread would cost 10 and a quarter pennies.

How much would that be today? No one knows for sure – the system is so different to what we use now converters struggle to estimate.

Who were we listening to in 1948? Well, around the time of Charles’ birth, Buttons and Bows by Dinah Shore and Her Happy Valley Boys would’ve been number one.

Although the charts didn’t actually start until the 50s, Old Record Shop estimate that Dinah would’ve been at that top spot using the weekly pop chart based on the sales of sheet music, which was published by Melody Maker.

The Andrews Sisters were also incredibly popular, having kept the nation’s spirits up during the war.

The top-grossing film in 1948 was The Red Shoes, a story about a talented ballerina who must choose to pursue either her art or her romance, a decision that carries serious consequences.

All that’s left to say is… Happy Birthday, Your Majesty.

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Charles was born in 1948, a year where many a historic event took place.