1953
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1953 is a common year starting on Thursday.
| Years: 1950 1951 1952 - 1953 - 1954 1955 1956 | |
| Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s | |
| Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century | |
| Contents |
Events
January
- January 7 - President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.
- January 13 - Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugoslavia
- January 20 - Change of US presidency from Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) to Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961).
- January 22 - The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opens on Broadway
- January 24 – Mau Mau rebels in Kenya kill Ruck family – father, mother and a 6-year-old son
- January 28 - Derek Bentley is executed for murder in Wandsworth Prison
- January 31, February 1 - North Sea Flood of 1953 flood kills 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands, 307 in the United Kingdom and several hundred at sea, including 134 on the Princess Victoria.
February
- February 1 - Severe storms and spring tide flooding cause severe damage to the coasts of Belgium and the Netherlands with severe flooding in Zeeland - North Sea Flood of 1953.
- February 5 - The movie Peter Pan premieres (Roxy Theatre, New York City).
- February 11 - President Eisenhower refuses clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
- February 11 - The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel.
- February 18 - The first 3D film, Bwana Devil opens.
- February 19 - Censorship: Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States
- February 28 - James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA.
March-April
- March 1 - After an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin collapses, having suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.
- March 1 - Bernard Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg made the deputy constable and lieutenant governor of Windsor Castle
- March 5 - After 29 years of ruling the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin dies.
- March 6 - Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Josef Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- March 18 - An earthquake hits western Turkey killing 250.
- March 25-26 – Lari Massacre in Kenya – Mau Mau rebels kill up to 150 kikuyu
- March 26 - Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
- April 7 - Dag Hammarskjöld is elected United Nations Secretary General.
- April 8 – Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced for seven years in prison for alleged organization of Mau Mau Rebellion
- April 25 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish their description of the double helix structure of DNA.
- Watson, J. D. and Crick, F. H. C. (1953). Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid (http://www.nature.com/genomics/human/watson-crick/index.html). Nature 171, 737-738.
May
- May 2 - Hussein is crowned King of Jordan.
- May 2 - 38-year-old Stanley Matthews finally wins the FA Cup at his third attempt, in the famous 'Matthews Final'
- May 9 – France agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia with the king Norodom Sihanouk
- May 11 - The Waco Tornado: A F5 tornado hits in the downtown section of Waco, Texas killing 114.
- May 18 - At Rogers Dry Lake, California Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier (she flew in a F-86 Sabrejet at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour).
- May 25 - Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
- May 29 - Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay perform the first successful ascent to the summit of Mount Everest.
June-July
- June 2 - Coronation of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey.
- June 8 - Flint-Worcester Tornadoes: A tornado hits in Flint, Michigan and kills 115. This is the last tornado to claim more than 100 lives.
- June 9 - CIA Technical Services Staff head Sidney Gottlieb approves of the use of LSD in a MKULTRA subproject.
- June 9 - Flint-Worcester Tornadoes: A tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts killing 94.
- June 13 - Hungarian Prime Minister Mátyás Rákosi is replaced by Imre Nagy.
- June 17 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
- June 18 - Egypt declares a republic
- June 19 - Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
- June 30 - The first Chevrolet Corvette is built at Flint (Michigan)
- July 10 – Soviet official paper Pravda announces that Lavrenti Beria has been deposed from his positions as a head of NKVD
- July 26 - Fidel Castro leads a disastrous assault on the Moncada Barracks, sparking the Cuban Revolution.
- July 27 - Korean War ends: The United States, People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea sign an armistice agreement.
August-October
- August 5 - Operation Big Switch, operation to repatriate prisoners of war after the Korean War
- August 7 - Ohio admitted to the union, retroactive to 1803.
- August 17 - Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California, see October 5.
- August 19 - Cold War: The CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and retain Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne (see: Operation Ajax).
- September 7 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
- September 26 - Rationing of sugar ends in the United Kingdom
- October - The UNIVAC 1103 is the first commercial computer to use random access memory.
- October 5 - First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous (first planning session was held August 17)
- October 12 - "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York.
- October 30 - Cold War: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.
November-December
Missing image
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David Ben-Gurion resigns
- November 5 - David Ben Gurion resigns as a prime minister of Israel
- November 9 - Cambodia becomes independent from France.
- November 21 - Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce that the skull of the "Piltdown Man", held to be one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax.
- November 25 - England lose 6-3 to Hungary at Wembley Stadium, their first ever loss to a continental team at home
- November 29 - French paratroopers take Dien Bien Phu
- December 8 - US president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his Atoms for Peace address to the UN General Assembly in New York City
- December 23 – Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrenti Beria has been executed
- December 24 - 153 people die as a result of the Tangiwai disaster when the railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River
- December 30 - The first color television sets go on sale for about $1,175 (American dollars).
Year in topic
- 1953 in film
- 1953 in literature
- Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel published
- Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
- 1953 in music
- Elvis Presley records for the first time
- 1953 in rail transport
- The first Trailer-On-Flat-Car (TOFC, or "piggyback") equipment enters service on the Southern Pacific Railroad.
- 1953 in sports
- April 16th - Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup, defeating Boston Bruins winning the series 4 games to 1, with a score of 1-0, in the first overtime at 1:22 (minutes:seconds)
- 1953 in television
- January 19 - 68% of all United States television sets were tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth
- February 18 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz sign an $8,000,000 contract to continue the I Love Lucy television series through 1955.
- March 25 - CBS concedes victory to RCA in the war over color television standards.
- April 3 - TV Guide is published for the first time, with 10 editions and a circulation of 1,562,000
- May 25 - KUHT in Houston, becomes the first non-commercial educational TV station
- The Tonight Show begins as a local New York variety show.
- August 30 - The first publicly announced experimental broadcast in compatible color is presented: NBC's Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
- October 19 - Arthur Godfrey fires Julius La Rosa on the air.
- November 22 - RCA airs the first commercial program in compatible color: The Colgate Comedy Hour with Donald O'Connor, by special permission of the FCC.
- December 24 - NBC's Dragnet becomes the first network-sponsored television program.
- December 17 - The FCC reverses its 1951 decision and approves the RCA/NTSC color system
- Japanese television goes on the air for the first time
- 1953 in theater
- July 13 - First lines of the first play produced by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Richard III) are spoken.
Births
January-February
- January 8 - Bruce Sutter, baseball relief pitcher
- January 10 - Pat Benatar, singer
- January 10 - Bobby Rahal, automobile racer
- January 19 - Desi Arnaz Jr., actor
- January 21 - Paul Allen, entrepreneur
- January 22 - Jim Jarmusch, director
- January 26 - Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark
- February 7 - Lige Curry, musician (P Funk)
- February 7 - Dan Quisenberry, baseball pitcher (d. 1998)
- February 8 - Mary Steenburgen, actress
- February 11 - Philip Anglim, actor
- February 11 - Alan Rubin, music figure
- February 11 - Stephen D. Thorne, astronaut
- February 17 - Norman Pace, actor, comic
- February 21 - William Petersen, actor
- February 25 - José María Aznar, Spanish politician
March-May
- March 1 - Richard Bruton, Irish Fine Gael politician and economist
- March 6 - Jan Kjćrstad, Norwegian author
- March 12 - Carl Hiaasen, author
- March 12 - Ron Jeremy, pornographic film actor
- March 16 - Isabelle Huppert, actress
- March 16 - Richard Stallman, Free software proponent
- March 23 - Chaka Khan, singer
- March 26 - Elaine Chao, U.S. Secretary of Labor
- April 1 - Barry Sonnenfeld, producer, director
- April 11 - Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium
- April 11 - Andrew Wiles, mathematician
- April 16 - J. Neil Schulman, Science Fiction writer, Libertarian activist
- May 6 - Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- May 15 - George Brett, Baseball Hall of Famer
- May 15 - Mike Oldfield, composer
- May 16 - Pierce Brosnan, actor (Remington Steele, James Bond)
- May 19 - Victoria Wood, British comic actress
- May 24 - Alfred Molina, actor
- May 26 - Michael Portillo, politician
- May 29 - Danny Elfman, (composer)
- May 30 - Colm Meaney, Irish actor
- May 11 - Rohit Savaram, Guntur/Indian Social Worker
June-August
- June 6 - Robert Bruce Thompson, American author
- June 8 - Bonnie Tyler, singer
- June 13 - Tim Allen, actor
- June 21 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (twice), first female Muslim head of government
- July 14 - Bebe Buell, model, singer, Playmate of the Month for November, 1974
- July 15 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former president of Haiti
- July 15 - Mila Pivnicki, First Lady of Canada
- July 29 - Geddy Lee, musician with Rush
- August 5 - Rick Mahler, Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)
- August 11 - Hulk Hogan, American professional wrestler
- August 18 - Louie Gohmert, American politician
- August 19 - Benoît Régent, French film actor
- August 28 - Gates McFadden, actress
October-December
- October 2 - Brandon Wilson, author, explorer
- October 7 - Christopher Norris, actress
- October 9 - Tony Shalhoub, actor
- October 12 - Serge Lepeltier, French politician
- October 12 - Les Dennis, comedian and television presenter
- October 16 - Terrence John Mason, American violinist
- October 22 - Jeff Goldblum, actor
- October 27 - Robert Picardo, actor
- October 31 - Michael J. Anderson, American actor
- October 31 - John M. Young,United Kingdom [British] Rehab Therapist
- November 14 - Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister of France
- November 18 - Alan Moore, comic book writer, writer, performer, magician
- November 19 - Robert Beltran, actor
- November 28 - Ben Bolt, American guitarist
- November 29 - Alex Grey, artist
- December 6 - Gary Ward, baseball player
- December 8 - Kim Basinger, actress and Oscar winner
- December 13 - Bob Gainey, Hockey Hall of Famer
- December 30 - Meredith Vierra, talk show host
Deaths
- January 1 - Hank Williams, American country musician
- January 28 - James Scullin, ninth Prime Minister of Australia
- March 2 - Jim Lightbody, American middle-distance runner
- March 5 - Herman J. Mankiewicz, writer, producer
- March 5 - Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet composer
- March 5 - Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader
- March 24 - Queen Mary the Dowager Queen Mother, formerly Mary of Teck, widow of King George V of the United Kingdom
- March 28 - Jim Thorpe, athlete (b. 1887)
- May 29 - Man Mountain Dean, professional wrestler
- July 26 - Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b. 1883)
- July 29 - Richard William Pearse, New Zealander airplane pioneer
- August 22 - Jim Tabor, baseball player
- September 2 - General Jonathan Wainwright, U.S. Medal of Honor recipient
- October 3 - Arnold Bax, composer
- October 8 - Kathleen Ferrier, American contralto (b. 1912)
- October 25 - Holger Pedersen, Dutch linguist (b. 1867)
- November 8 - Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Russian writer (b. 1870)
- November 8 - John van Melle, South African author
- November 9 - Dylan Thomas, poet and author
- November 21 - Larry Shields, jazz musician (b. 1893)
- November 27 - Eugene O'Neill, playwright
- November 29 - Sam De Grasse, pioneer Hollywood actor
- November 30 - Francis Picabia, painter, poet
- December 27 - Julian Tuwim, Polish poet (b. 1894)
Unknown date
- T. F. O'Rahilly, Irish academic
Nobel Prizes
- Physics - Frits (Frederik) Zernike
- Chemistry - Hermann Staudinger
- Medicine - Hans Adolf Krebs, Fritz Albert Lipmann
- Literature - Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- Peace - George Catlett Marshallaf:1953
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