1953
1953 (
MCMLIII) was a
common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar).
January
*
January 7 -
President Harry S. Truman announces the
United States has developed a
hydrogen bomb.
*
January 12 -
Estonian
emigres find a
government in exile in
Oslo*
January 13 - Marshal
Josip Broz Tito chosen President of
Yugoslavia*
January 14 - CIA-sponsored
Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the
UFO phenomenon. Official results are to publicly "debunk" them and use the media to ridicule people
*
January 15 -
Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of
East Germany, is arrested for spying
*
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 â€"
Mau Mau rebels in Kenya kill Ruck family â€" father, mother and a 6-year-old son
*
January 26 -
Walter Ulbricht announces that the agriculture will be
collectivized in
East Germany*
January 28 -
Derek Bentley is executed for murder in
Wandsworth Prison
*
January 31-
February 1 -
North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,835 people in the southwestern
Netherlands (especially
Zeeland), 307 in the
United Kingdom and several hundred at sea, including 132 on the
ferry Princess Victoria in the
Irish SeaFebruary
*
February 1 - Surge of
North Sea Flood of 1953 continues from the previous day.
*
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 13 -
Transsexual Christine Jorgenson returns to New York after successful
sexual reassignment surgery in
Denmark*
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
*
March 1 - After an all-night dinner with
Soviet Union 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 11 -
U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an
atom bomb on
Mars Bluff,
South Carolina. It fails to
detonate.
*
March 13 -
United Nations Security Council nominates
Dag Hammarskjöld as
United Nations Secretary General*
March 14 -
Nikita Khruschev selected general secretary of the Soviet communist party
*
March 17 -
Nuclear test in
Nevada - with 1620 spectators at 3.4 km
*
March 18 - An
earthquake hits western
Turkey killing 250.
*
March 25-
26 â€"
Lari Massacre in
Kenya â€"
Mau Mau rebels kill up to 150
kikuyu*
March 26 -
Jonas Salk announces his
polio vaccine.
April
*
April 7 -
Dag Hammarskjöld is elected
United Nations Secretary General.
*
April 8 â€"
Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced for seven years in prison for alleged organization of
Mau Mau Rebellion
*
April 13 -
Ian Fleming publishes his first
James Bond novel,
Casino Royale in the
United Kingdom*
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.
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 â€" France agrees to the provisional independence of
Cambodia with the king
Norodom Sihanouk*
May 10 - Town of
Chemnitz in
East Germany becomes
Karl Marx Stadt*
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
|
Queen Elizabeth II in her coronation robes |
*
June 2 -
Coronation of
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom at
Westminster Abbey.
*
June 7 -
General election in
Italy*
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 8 -
Austria and
Soviet Union form
diplomatic relations*
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 12 -
Currency reform causes riots in
Czechoslovakia*
June 13 -
Hungarian Prime Minister
Mátyás Rákosi is replaced by
Imre Nagy.
*
June 16 -
Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia form
diplomatic relations*
June 17 -
Workers Uprising: In
East Germany, the
Soviet Union orders a
Division (military) 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
*
July 4 -
Strikes and
riots in
coal mining regions in
Poland*
July 5 - First meeting of the assembly of the
European Economic Community in
Strasbourg,
France*
July 10 â€" Soviet official paper
Pravda announces that
Lavrenti Beria has been deposed from his positions as a head of
NKVD*
July 18 - Flood in the
Hodno island in
Japan - 1700 dead, 7000 injured
*
July 26 -
Fidel Castro and his brother lead a disastrous assault on the
Moncada Barracks - preliminary to 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
*
August 5 -
Operation Big Switch, operation to repatriate
prisoners of war after the
Korean War*
August 7 -
Ohio admitted as a
U. S. state, retroactive to
1803.
*
August 8 - Soviet prime minister
Georgi Malenkov announces that
Soviet Union has a
hydrogen bomb*
August 11 -
Earthquake devastates islands of the
Ionian Sea*
August 13 - 4 million workers go on strike in
France to protest
austerity measures
*
August 17 -
Addiction: First meeting of
Narcotics Anonymous in Southern
California, see
October 5.
*
August 18 -
Kinsey report*
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).
*
August 20 -
French government oust the
sultan of
Morocco and exiles him to
Corsica*
August 20 -
USA gives
West Germany 382 ships it captured during
World War Two*
August 25 -
General strike ends in
FranceSeptember-October
*
September 5 -
United Nations does not accept
Soviet Union's suggestion to accept
China as a member
*
September 7 -
Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the
Soviet Central Committee.
*
September 25 -
Hurricane in
South-East Asia - over 1000 dead
*
September 25 - First German
prisoners of war return from
Soviet Union to
West Germany*
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 9 -
Konrad Adenauer is re-elected as a German
chancellor*
October 12 - "
The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at
Plymouth Theatre,
New York.
*
October 23 -
Philippines'
DZAQ-TV3 made its initial telecast, becoming
Asia's first commercial television broadcaster.
*
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
*
November 5 -
David Ben Gurion resigns as a
prime minister of
Israel*
November 9 -
Cambodia becomes
independent from
France.
*
November 9 - King
Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia dies
*
November 21 - Authorities at the
British Natural History Museum announce that the
skull of the "
Piltdown Man", 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 2 -
United Kingdom and
Iran reform
diplomatic relations*
December 8 - US president
Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his
Atoms for Peace address to the
UN General Assembly in
New York City*
December 10 -
Albert Schweitzer was given the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.
*
December 17 - The
FCC approves
color television*
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).
*
? -
Ikue Mori, drummer, composer, and graphic designer
January
*
January 4 -
George Tenet, American Central Intelligence Agency director
*
January 6 -
Malcolm Young, Australian musician
*
January 8 -
Bruce Sutter, American baseball player
*
January 10 -
Pat Benatar, American singer
*
January 10 -
Bobby Rahal, American race car driver
*
January 19 -
Desi Arnaz Jr., American actor
*
January 21 -
Paul Allen, American entrepreneur
*
January 21 -
Barry McNamara, Australian Entrepeuner and Psychologist
*
January 22 -
Jim Jarmusch, American director
*
January 26 -
Anders Fogh Rasmussen,
Prime Minister of Denmark*
January 29 -
Teresa Teng, Asian superstar
February
*
February 7 -
Dan Quisenberry, baseball player (d.
1998)
*
February 8 -
Mary Steenburgen, American actress
*
February 9 -
Ciarán Hinds, Northern Irish actor
*
February 9 -
Rick Wagoner, American Automotive executive
*
February 11 -
Philip Anglim, American actor
*
February 11 -
Jeb Bush, brother of
President George W Bush and son of
George H.W. Bush and
Barbara Pierce Bush *
February 11 -
Alan Rubin, American musician
*
February 17 -
Janice Dickinson, American supermodel
*
February 17 -
Norman Pace, British actor and comedian
*
February 21 -
William Petersen, American actor
*
February 25 -
José MarÃa Aznar, Spanish politician
*
February 25 -
Martin Kippenberger, German artist
*
February 26 -
Michael Bolton, American singer
March
*
March 1 -
Richard Bruton, Irish politician and economist
*
March 6 -
Jan Kjærstad, Norwegian author
* March 6 -
Jacklyn Zeman, American actress
*
March 12 -
Carl Hiaasen, American author
* March 12 -
Ron Jeremy, American actor
*
March 16 -
Isabelle Huppert, French actress
* March 16 -
Richard Stallman, American free software proponent
*
March 17 -
Filemon Lagman, Filipino Communist revolutionary (d.
2001)
*
March 23 -
Chaka Khan, American singer
*
March 26 -
Elaine Chao, U.S. Secretary of Labor
*
March 30 - Bernd Tausche, Born Sceptic, Germany
April
*
April 1 -
Barry Sonnenfeld, American film producer and director
*
April 2 -
Jim Allister, Northern Irish politician
*
April 4 -
Robert Bertrand, Canadian politician
*
April 6 -
Andy Hertzfeld, American computer programmer
* April 11 -
Andrew Wiles, British-born mathematician
*
April 16 -
J. Neil Schulman, American writer and activist
*
April 20 -
Sebastian Faulks, English novelist
*
April 30 -
Rebecca Fransway, American author
May
*
May 6 -
Tony Blair,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom*
May 15 -
George Brett, baseball player
* May 15 -
Mike Oldfield, English composer
*
May 16 -
Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor
*
May 19 -
Victoria Wood, British comic actress
*
May 20 -
Robert Doyle, Australian politician
*
May 26 -
Michael Portillo, English politician
*
May 29 -
Danny Elfman, American composer
*
May 30 -
Colm Meaney, Irish actor
*
May 31 -
Kathie Sullivan, American singer,
The Lawrence Welk ShowJune-July
*
June 1 -
David Berkowitz, American serial killer
*
June 4 -
Susumu Ojima, Japanese entrepreneur (
Huser)
*
June 13 -
Tim Allen, American actor
*
June 21 -
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto,
Prime Minister of Pakistan, Daughter of the late Quaid-I-Awam Z.A. BHUTTO
*
June 24 -
Ivo Lill, Estonian artist
*
July 14 -
Bebe Buell, American model and singer
*
July 15 -
Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
President of Haiti* July 15 -
Mila Pivnicki, wife of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney
*
July 27 -
Yahoo Serious, Australian film maker
*
July 29 -
Geddy Lee, Canadian musician (
Rush)
August
*
August 5 -
Rick Mahler, baseball player (d.
2005)
*
August 9 -
Robert Cray, American musician
*
August 11 -
Hulk Hogan, American professional wrestler
*
August 14 -
Cliff Johnson, Puzzle Game Author
*
August 18 -
Louie Gohmert, American politician
*
August 19 -
Benoît Régent, French actor (d.
1994)
*
August 26 -
Pat Sharkey, Northern Irish footballer
*
August 29 -
James Quesada, Nicaraguan-American Cultural Anthropologist
*
August 31 -
György Károly, Hungarian author
September
*
September 4 -
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, American actor,
Welcome Back Kotter*
September 8 -
Stu Unger, Professional poker player (d.
1998)
*
September 10 -
Amy Irving - American actress
*
September 10 -
Roger Maris - American professional baseball player
*
September 11 -
Lesley Visser - American sportscaster and journalist
*
September 12 -
Stephen Sprouse, Fashion designer, artist, and photographer (d.
2004)
*
September 30 -
Deborah Allen, American country music singer
October
*
October 2 -
Brandon Wilson, American author and explorer
*
October 7 -
Christopher Norris, British critical theorist
*
October 7 -
Tico Torres, American musician (
Bon Jovi)
*
October 9 -
Tony Shalhoub, American actor
*
October 12 -
Serge Lepeltier, French politician
* October 12 -
Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
*
October 22 -
Jeff Goldblum, American actor
*
October 27 -
Robert Picardo, American actor
*
October 27 -
Peter Firth, British actor
*
October 31 -
Michael J. Anderson, American actor
November
*
November 4 -
Carlos Gutierrez, American politician
*
November 11 -
Harley Venton, American actor
*
November 14 -
Dominique de Villepin,
Prime Minister of France*
November 18 -
Alan Moore, English writer and magician
*
November 19 -
Robert Beltran, American actor
*
November 19 -
Tom Villard, American actor (d.
1994)
*
November 23 -
Francis Cabrel, French singer
*
November 25 -
Graham Eadie, Australian rugby league player
*
November 28 -
Ben Bolt, American guitarist
*
November 29 -
Alex Grey, American artist
December
*
December 6 -
Gary Ward, baseball player
*
December 8 -
Kim Basinger, American actress
*
December 13 -
Ben Bernanke, American economist
*
December 13 -
Bob Gainey, Canadian hockey player
*
December 29 -
Stanley Williams, co-founder of Crips street gang (d.
2005)
*
December 30 -
Harald Schmautz, German journalist
*
January 1 -
Hank Williams, American musician (b.
1923)
*
January 28 -
James Scullin, ninth
Prime Minister of Australia (b.
1876)
*
February 5 -
Iuliu Maniu, Romanian politician (b.
1873)
*
February 25 -
Sergei Winogradsky, Russian scientist (b.
1856)
*
March 2 -
Jim Lightbody, American runner (b.
1882)
*
March 5 -
Herman J. Mankiewicz, American writer and producer (b.
1897)
*
March 5 -
Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (b.
1891)
*
March 5 -
Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (b.
1879)
*
March 24 -
Mary of Teck, consort of
George V of the United Kingdom (b.
1867)
*
March 28 -
Jim Thorpe, American athlete (b.
1887)
*
May 29 -
Man Mountain Dean, American professional wrestler (b.
1891)
*
July 18 -
Lucy Booth, the fifth daughter of
William and
Catherine Booth (b.
1868)
*
July 26 -
Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b.
1883)
*
July 29 -
Richard William Pearse, New Zealand airplane pioneer (b.
1877)
*
August 15 -
Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist (b.
1875)
*
August 22 -
Jim Tabor, baseball player (b.
1916)
*
September 2 -
General Jonathan Wainwright, U.S. Medal of Honor recipient (b.
1883)
*
September 8 -
Fred M. Vinson,
Chief Justice of the United States (b.
1890)
*
September 12 -
Hugo Schmeisser, German weapons designer (b.
1884)
*
September 28 -
Edwin Hubble, American astronomer (b.
1889)
*
October 3 -
Arnold Bax, English composer (b.
1887)
*
October 8 -
Kathleen Ferrier, British contralto (b.
1912)
*
October 25 -
Holger Pedersen, Dutch linguist (b.
1867)
*
October 27 -
Thomas Wass, English cricketer (b.
1873)
*
November 8 -
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Russian writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1870)
*
November 8 -
John van Melle, Dutch-born author (b.
1883)
*
November 9 -
Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and author (b.
1914)
*
November 21 -
Larry Shields, American musician (b.
1893)
*
November 27 -
Eugene O'Neill, American writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1888)
*
November 29 -
Sam De Grasse, Canadian actor (b.
1875)
*
November 29 -
Milt Gross, American comic book illustrator and animator (b.
1895)
*
November 30 -
Francis Picabia, French painter and poet (b.
1879)
*
December 18 -
Robert Millikan, American physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1868)
*
December 27 -
Julian Tuwim, Polish poet (b.
1894)
*
December 31 -
Albert Plesman, Dutch aviation pioneer (b.
1889)
*
Physics -
Frits (Frederik) Zernike*
Chemistry -
Hermann Staudinger*
Medicine -
Hans Adolf Krebs,
Fritz Albert Lipmann*
Literature -
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill*
Peace -
George Catlett Marshall
