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 art 1953 in aviation 1953 in film 1953 in literature 1953 in music 1953 in radio 1953 in science 1953 in sports 1953 in television

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Events

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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 kills 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands, 307 in the United Kingdom and several hundred at sea.

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February

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.

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March

March 1 - Aafter 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.

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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 Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA.

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May

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 Jacqueline 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.

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June

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 - 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

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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.

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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).

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September

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

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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.

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November

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 28 - Ben Bolt,Innovator of Guitar
November 29 - French paratroopers take Dien Bien Phu

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December

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).

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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 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.

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Births

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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