1953
1953 is a common year starting on Thursday (click on link for the calendar).
Events
- 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 31, February 1 - North Sea flood kills 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands and 307 in the United Kingdom.
- 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 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 26 - Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
- April 7 - Dag Hammarskjöld is elected United Nations Secretary General.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 Matyas Rakosi is replaced with Imre Nagy.
- June 17 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
- July 26 - Fidel Castro leads a disasterous 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 7 - Ohio admitted to the union, retroactive to 1803.
- August 19 - Cold War: The CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (see: Operation Ajax).
- September 7 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
- October - The UNIVAC 1103 is the first commercial computer to use random access memory.
- 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 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, was a hoax.
- 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
- 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 - NBC's Kukla, Fran, and Ollie Show is broadcast in color
- October 19 - Arthur Godfrey fires Julius La Rosa on the air.
- November - RCA tests its compatible color TV system on the air for the first time with a telecast of the Colgate Comedy Hour.
- 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 8 - Bruce Sutter, baseball relief pitcher
- January 10 - Pat Benatar, singer
- January 19 - Desi Arnaz Jr., actor
- February 7 - Dan Quisenberry, baseball pitcher (d. 1998)
- March 23 - Chaka Khan, singer
- May 6 - Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- May 15 - George Brett, Baseball Hall of Famer
- May 16 - Pierce Brosnan, actor (Remington Steele, James Bond)
- June 21 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (twice), first female Muslim head of government
- August 11 - Hulk Hogan, American professional wrestler
- October 9 - Tony Shalhoub, actor
- December 8 - Kim Basinger, actress and Oscar winner
- December 13 - Bob Gainey, Hockey Hall of Famer
Deaths
- 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
- November 9 - Dylan Thomas, poet and author
- November 21 - Larry Shields, jazz musician (b. 1893)
- November 27 - Eugene O'Neill, playwright
- Physics - Frits (Frederik) Zernike
- Chemistry - Hermann Staudinger
- Medicine - Hans Adolf Krebs, Fritz Albert Lipmann
- Literature - Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- Peace - George Catlett Marshall