WORLD HISTORY · 1953 日本語
Events of 1953Showa 28 (Japan) · Year of the Snake
What happened in 1953?
In 1953, the public broadcaster NHK began regular television broadcasting, and Nippon Television followed as the first commercial broadcaster to do so. Abroad, the Korean War armistice was signed, and Mount Everest was climbed for the first time.
- NHK begins regular TV broadcastsAsia
- Double-helix structure of DNA discoveredEurope
- Yoshida's insult triggers "Bakayaro" dissolutionAsia
- Repatriation from mainland China resumesAsia
- Stalin dies; Malenkov becomes Soviet premierEurope
- Hillary team makes first Everest ascentAsia
- Korean War armistice signedAsia
- Nippon TV starts first commercial broadcastsAsia
Tap an event to jump to it in the timeline below.
1953 at a glance
| Japanese era | Showa 28 |
|---|---|
| Chinese zodiac | Year of the Snake |
| Age of people born in 1953 | Turn 73 in 2026 |
| Previous / next year | 1952 (Showa 27) ／ 1954 (Showa 29) |
| Events | 70 |
| AP World History | Unit 8 (Cold War and Decolonization) |
| AP U.S. History | Period 8 |
Famous people born in 1953
Our birthday pages list 686 people born in 1953. Here are some of them.
- Paul AllenBorn January 21 · turns 73 this year · American entrepreneur who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates and later became…
- Chaka KhanBorn March 23 · turns 73 this year · American singer called the Queen of Funk, known for Rufus hits and I'm Every Wo…
- Cyndi LauperBorn June 22 · turns 73 this year · American singer behind Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Time After Time, and Ton…
- Walter PaytonBorn July 25 · turns 73 this year · Hall of Fame running back for the Chicago Bears, nicknamed "Sweetness," who onc…
- Ken BurnsBorn July 29 · turns 73 this year · American documentary filmmaker known for PBS series such as The Civil War, Base…
- Ben BernankeBorn December 13 · turns 73 this year · American economist who chaired the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014 and shared…
- Xi JinpingBorn June 15 · turns 73 this year
- Tito JacksonBorn October 15 · turns 73 this year
- ZicoBorn March 3 · turns 73 this year
- Jeffrey EpsteinBorn January 20 · turns 73 this year
- Mary SteenburgenBorn February 8 · turns 73 this year
- Gary JohnsonBorn January 1 · turns 73 this year
Show 28 more
- Justin FlemingBorn January 3 · turns 73 this year
- Mohamed Waheed HassanBorn January 3 · turns 73 this year
- Peter TaylorBorn January 3 · turns 73 this year
- Norberto AlonsoBorn January 4 · turns 73 this year
- George TenetBorn January 5 · turns 73 this year
- Mike RannBorn January 5 · turns 73 this year
- Pamela Sue MartinBorn January 5 · turns 73 this year
- Malcolm YoungBorn January 6 · turns 73 this year
- Robert LongoBorn January 7 · turns 73 this year
- Bruce SutterBorn January 8 · turns 73 this year
- Marián ŠťastnýBorn January 8 · turns 73 this year
- Bobby RahalBorn January 10 · turns 73 this year
- Pat BenatarBorn January 10 · turns 73 this year
- Graham AllenBorn January 11 · turns 73 this year
- Kostas SkandalidisBorn January 11 · turns 73 this year
- Mary HarronBorn January 12 · turns 73 this year
- Silvana GallardoBorn January 13 · turns 73 this year
- David ClaryBorn January 14 · turns 73 this year
- Denzil DouglasBorn January 14 · turns 73 this year
- Hans WesterhoffBorn January 14 · turns 73 this year
- Randy WhiteBorn January 15 · turns 73 this year
- Robert Jay MathewsBorn January 16 · turns 73 this year
- Carlos JohnsonBorn January 17 · turns 73 this year
- Jeff BerlinBorn January 17 · turns 73 this year
- B. K. MisraBorn January 18 · turns 73 this year
- Brett HudsonBorn January 18 · turns 73 this year
- Peter MoonBorn January 18 · turns 73 this year
- Desi Arnaz Jr.Born January 19 · turns 73 this year
Events of 1953 (timeline · 70)
Tip: the PC view is best for studying
On a computer, each region has its own vertical line, so you can follow the flow of events and see what was happening in different parts of the world at the same time.
Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.
Almost 72 percent of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom.
The Batepá massacre occurs in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleash a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros.
Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower denies all appeals for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses; he dies four days later.
A De Havilland Comet (Canadian Pacific Air Lines) crashes in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 11 people.
Joseph Stalin, the longest serving leader of the Soviet Union, dies at his Volynskoe dacha in Moscow after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage four days earlier.
Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA.
Operation Moolah offers $50,000 to any pilot who defects with a fully mission-capable Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 to South Korea. The first pilot was to receive $100,000.
The first U.S. experimental 3D television broadcast shows an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.
Two men are rescued from a semitrailer that crashed over the side of the Pit River Bridge before it fell into the Sacramento River. Amateur photographer Virginia Schau photographs "Rescue on Pit River Bridge", the first and only winning submission for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography to have been taken by a woman.
In the deadliest of a series of tornadoes, an F5 tornado kills 114 in Waco, Texas.
Approximately 7,100 brewery workers in Milwaukee perform a walkout, marking the start of the 1953 Milwaukee brewery strike.
The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
Nuclear weapons testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey becomes the first British coronation, and one of the first major international events, to be televised.
The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.
An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, United States, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.
Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
The Egyptian revolution of 1952 ends with the overthrow of the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the declaration of the Republic of Egypt.
A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tachikawa, Japan, killing 129.
Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.
The largest number of United States midshipman casualties in a single event results from an aircraft crash in Florida, killing 44.
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.
Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment repel a number of Chinese assaults against a key position known as The Hook during the Battle of the Samichon River, just hours before the Armistice Agreement is signed, ending the Korean War.
Cold War: Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution. The movement took the name of the date: 26th of July Movement
Korean War: Cessation of hostilities is achieved when the United States, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice.
First Indochina War: The French Union withdraws its forces from Operation Camargue against the Viet Minh in central Vietnam.
The 7.2 Ms Ionian earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 445 and 800 people are killed.
Thermonuclear bomb testing: The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4) using a "layered" scheme.
Cold War: The CIA and MI6 help to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island.
Nikita Khrushchev is appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Lieutenant No Kum-sok, a North Korean pilot, defects to South Korea with his jet fighter.
The Four Level Interchange, first stack interchange in the world opened in Los Angeles.
Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India's Madras State.
A United States-South Korea mutual defense treaty is concluded in Washington, D.C.
Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro delivers his "History Will Absolve Me" speech, and is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment by the Fulgencio Batista government for leading an attack on the Moncada Barracks.
President Eisenhower approves the top-secret document NSC 162/2 concerning the maintenance of a strong nuclear deterrent force against the Soviet Union.
The remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, County Kerry, Ireland, are evacuated to the mainland.
The Natural History Museum, London announces that the "Piltdown Man" skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, is a hoax.
Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Tangiwai disaster: In New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge is damaged by a lahar and collapses beneath a passenger train, killing 151 people.
Source: Wikipedia date pages ("January 1" … "December 31") / CC BY-SA 4.0. Regions are assigned by the site editors.
FAQ
What year was 1953 in the Japanese calendar?
1953 was Showa 28 in the Japanese era system.
What Chinese zodiac animal is 1953?
1953 is the Year of the Snake.
How old is someone born in 1953?
They turn 73 on their birthday in 2026.
What happened in 1953?
In 1953, the public broadcaster NHK began regular television broadcasting, and Nippon Television followed as the first commercial broadcaster to do so. Abroad, the Korean War armistice was signed, and Mount Everest was climbed for the first time.
Dates and events are based on Wikipedia and other references. Summaries and regions are written by the site editors.