| 1953-08-17
Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.
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| 1953-05-04
Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
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| 1953-05-29
Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.
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| 1953-05-25
The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
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| 1953-10-22
Laos gains independence from France.
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| 1953-07-07
Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.
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| 1953-09-07
Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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| 1953-11-17
The remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, Kerry, Ireland are evacuated to the mainland.
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| 1953-12-24
Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge is destroyed by a lahar at Tangiwai, in the Central North Island of New Zealand, sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River, and killing 153 people.
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| 1953-10-29
BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco, California. Pianist William Kapell is among the 19 killed.
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| 1953-04-16
Queen Elizabeth II launches the Royal Yacht HMY Britannia.
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| 1953-05-25
Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conduct their first and only nuclear artillery test.
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| 1953-04-30
In Warner Robins, Georgia, an F4 tornado kills 18 people.
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| 1953-05-11
The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak: an F5 tornado hits downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114.
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| 1953-01-19
68% of all television sets in the United States are tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
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| 1953-06-09
Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: a tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts killing 94.
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| 1953-01-13
Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen as President of Yugoslavia.
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| 1953-06-18
The Republic of Egypt is declared and the monarchy is abolished.
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| 1953-04-10
Warner Brothers premieres the first 3-D film from a major American studio, entitled House of Wax.
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| 1953-03-03
A Canadian Pacific Airlines De Havilland Comet crashes in Karachi, Pakistan killing 11.
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| 1953-06-17
East Germany Workers Uprising: in East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
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| 1953-10-12
"The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York
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| 1953-01-03
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
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| 1953-11-30
Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.
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| 1953-04-13
CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program MKULTRA.
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| 1953-08-28
Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.
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| 1953-02-21
Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
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| 1953-01-20
Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated as the first Republican President in twenty years.
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| 1953-04-29
The first U.S. experimental 3D-TV broadcast showed an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.
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| 1953-11-02
The Constituent Assembly of Pakistan names the country The Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
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| 1953-12-30
The first ever NTSC color television sets go on sale for about USD $1,175 each from RCA.
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| 1953-02-11
President Dwight Eisenhower refuses clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
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| 1953-06-19
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.
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| 1953-02-19
Censorship: Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.
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| 1953-01-06
The first Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
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| 1953-06-18
A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tokyo, Japan killing 129.
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| 1953-04-24
Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
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| 1953-03-18
An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 250.
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| 1953-01-31
A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands.
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| 1953-10-05
The first documented recovery meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held.
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| 1953-05-18
Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
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| 1953-03-02
The Academy Awards are first broadcast on television by NBC.
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| 1953-07-27
Korean War ends: The United States, People's Republic of China, and North Korea, sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice.
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| 1953-10-30
Cold War: U.S. 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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| 1953-07-26
Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
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| 1953-10-15
British nuclear test Totem 1 detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
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| 1953-03-01
Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses. He dies four days later.
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| 1953-07-26
Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders an anti-polygamy law enforcement crackdown on residents of Short Creek, Arizona, which becomes known as the Short Creek Raid.
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| 1953-06-08
Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado hits Flint, Michigan, and kills 115. This is the last tornado to claim more than 100 lives.
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| 1953-11-09
Cambodia becomes independent from France.
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| 1953-10-27
British nuclear test Totem 2 is carried out at Emu Field, South Australia.
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| 1953-02-28
James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April Nature (pub. April 2).
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| 1953-04-08
Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by Kenya's British rulers.
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| 1953-11-21
The British Natural History Museum announces that the "Piltdown Man" skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, is a hoax.
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| 1953-12-09
Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
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| 1953-07-30
RikidÅzan holds a ceremony announcing the establishment of the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance.
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| 1953-07-20
The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency.
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| 1953-08-12
The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the richter.
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| 1953-03-06
Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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| 1953-08-19
Cold War: the CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
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| 1953-06-02
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.
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| 1953-06-08
The United States Supreme Court rules that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.
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| 1953-06-30
The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.
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| 1953-06-26
Lavrentiy Beria,head of MVD, was arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo.
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| 1953-09-13
Nikita Khrushchev appointed secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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| 1953-02-11
The Soviet Union breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel.
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| 1953-04-25
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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| 1953-08-20
The Soviet Union publicly acknowledges that it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
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| 1953-08-12
Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
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