1953

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

1953 in topic:
Arts
Architecture - Art - Film - Literature - Music - Television
Science and technology
Aviation - Rail transport - Science
Other topics
Canada – Ireland – South Africa – Sport

Lists of leaders:
State leaders - Religious leaders

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

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

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. Nature 171, 737–738.

May

May 2 – Hussein is crowned King of Jordan.
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

Queen Elizabeth II in her coronation robes

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

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

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

September 7 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
September 26 – Rationing of sugar ends in the United Kingdom

October

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

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

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

June

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