What happened in 1953

44 events　World 1, Japan 2, North America 7, Europe 12, USSR / Russia 5, Asia 8, Middle East 2, Latin America 3, Africa 3, Oceania 1

Highlights of 1953

Feb 12WorldThe Nordic Council is inaugurated.
FebJapanTelevision broadcasting begins in JapanNHK began broadcasting on February 1 and Nippon Television in August, but sets were expensive, and crowds gathered around street TVs for wrestling. TV spread into homes with the Crown Prince's wedding in 1959.
Mar 1USSR / RussiaJoseph Stalin suffers a stroke, after an all-night dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrentiy Beria and future premiers Georgy Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, and Nikita Khrushchev. The stroke paralyzes the right side of his body and renders him unconscious until his death on March 5.
Mar 26North AmericaJonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
AprEuropeThe double helix of DNAWatson and Crick showed that DNA, which carries genetic information, is two strands twisted into a helix. An X-ray photograph taken by Rosalind Franklin was the key clue.
May 9AsiaFrance agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia, with King Norodom Sihanouk.

FebTelevision broadcasting begins in JapanNHK began broadcasting on February 1 and Nippon Television in August, but sets were expensive, and crowds gathered around street TVs for wrestling. TV spread into homes with the Crown Prince's wedding in 1959.
Jun 18Tachikawa air disaster: A United States Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashes just after takeoff from Tachikawa Airfield near Tokyo, Japan, killing all 129 people on board in the worst air crash in history up to this time, and the first with a confirmed death toll exceeding 100.

Mar 26Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
May 25Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its only nuclear artillery test: Upshot-Knothole Grable.
Jun 9CIA Technical Services Staff head Sidney Gottlieb approves of the use of LSD in an MKUltra subproject.
Aug 17The first planning session of Narcotics Anonymous is held in Southern California (see October 5).
Oct 5The first meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held (the first planning session was held August 17).
OctThe UNIVAC 1103 is the first commercial computer to use random-access memory.
Dec 8U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his Atoms for Peace address, to the United Nations General Assembly.

Jan 12Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo.
Jan 31The North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,836 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland), 307 in the United Kingdom, and several hundred at sea, including 133 on the ferry in the Irish Sea.
Feb 1The surge of the North Sea flood continues from the previous day.
Feb 28Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia sign the Balkan Pact.
AprThe double helix of DNAWatson and Crick showed that DNA, which carries genetic information, is two strands twisted into a helix. An X-ray photograph taken by Rosalind Franklin was the key clue.
May 5Aldous Huxley first tries the psychedelic hallucinogen mescaline, inspiring his book The Doors of Perception.
May 291953 British Mount Everest expedition: Sir Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal become the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Jun 1Uprising in Plzeň: Currency reform causes riots in Czechoslovakia.
Jun 2Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, at Westminster Abbey.
Jun 17Workers' Uprising in East Germany: The Soviet Union orders a Division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
Aug 12The 1953 Ionian earthquake of magnitude 7.2 totally devastates Cephalonia and most of the other Ionian Islands, in Greece's worst natural disaster in centuries.
Sep 23The Pact of Madrid is signed by Francoist Spain and the United States of America, ending a period of virtual isolation for Spain.

Feb 11The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel, after a bomb explodes at the Soviet Embassy, in reaction to the 'Doctors' plot'.
Mar 1Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke, after an all-night dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrentiy Beria and future premiers Georgy Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, and Nikita Khrushchev. The stroke paralyzes the right side of his body and renders him unconscious until his death on March 5.
Mar 6Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin, as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Jul 10The Soviet official newspaper Pravda announces that Lavrentiy Beria has been deposed as head of the NKVD.
Dec 23The Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrentiy Beria has been executed.

Jan 6The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
May 9France agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia, with King Norodom Sihanouk.
Jul 27The Korean War ends, with the Korean Armistice Agreement: The United Nations Command (Korea) (United States), China and North Korea sign an armistice agreement at Panmunjom, and the north remains communist, while the south remains capitalist. No formal peace treaty is ever signed.
Aug 5Operation Big Switch: Prisoners of war are repatriated to the United States after the Korean War.
Aug 15Cold War: 1953 Iranian coup d'état – Overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, by Iranian military in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with the support of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (as "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom.
Nov 9Cambodia becomes independent from France.
Nov 20First Indochina War: Operation Castor – In a massive airborne operation in Vietnam, French forces establish a base at Điện Biên Phủ.
Nov 29First Indochina War: Battle of Dien Bien Phu – French paratroopers consolidate their position at Điện Biên Phủ.

Mar 18The Yenice–Gönen earthquake affects western Turkey, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (violent), causing at least 1,070 deaths, and $3.57 million in damage.
Jun 18Egypt declares itself a republic.

Jul 26Fidel Castro and his brother lead a disastrous assault on the Moncada Barracks, preliminary to the Cuban Revolution.
Nov 21Puerto Williams is founded in Chile, as the southernmost settlement of the world.
Global meat packing industry JBS is founded in Anapolis, Goias, Brazil.

Jan 24Mau Mau Uprising: Rebels in Kenya kill the Ruck family (father, mother, and six-year-old son).
Feb 3Batepá massacre: Hundreds of native creoles, known as forros, are massacred in São Tomé, by the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners.
Apr 8Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to 7 years in prison for the alleged organization of the Mau Mau Uprising in the British Kenya Colony.

Dec 24Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand, sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River; 151 are killed.