1953

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1950–1959	USA [everyday life]	The number of people in the USA who live in the suburbs increases by 44% in the 1950s.
1950–1980	UK [television]	Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television.
15 October 1951 - 24 June 1957	USA [television]	I Love Lucy, US television's first smash hit situation comedy, is shown, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley.
1953	UK [television]	Panorama, currently the oldest established current affairs programme on British television, starts broadcasting. Originally a fortnightly general magazine programme, it soon develops into its long-term investigative journalism format, presented by Richard Dimbleby.
1953	USA [tennis]	The US lawn tennis player Maureen ‘Little Mo’ Connolly, aged 18, becomes the first woman to achieve the Grand Slam, winning the singles titles at the Australian, French, Wimbledon, and US championships within the same calendar year.
1953	UK [thought and scholarship]	British cryptographer Michael Ventris publishes ‘Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives’, in which he announces his decipherment (1952) of the Minoan Linear B script, an ancient form of Greek written between 1500 and 1200 BC.
1953	Russia [orchestral music]	The Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich completes his Symphony No. 10 and his String Quartet No. 5.
1953	USA [philosophy]	US philosopher Willard V Quine publishes From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays.
1953	Austria [philosophy]	Philosophical Investigations by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is published posthumously. This work (which marks a complete break with his early philosophy) has a profound impact on Anglo-American philosophy.
1953	Germany [philosophy]	German philosopher Martin Heidegger publishes Einführung in die Metaphysik/An Introduction to Metaphysics.
1953	France [plays]	The play En attendant Godot/Waiting for Godot, by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett, is first performed, in Paris, France.
1953	USA [plays]	The play The Crucible, by the US dramatist Arthur Miller, is first performed, at the Martin Beck Theater in New York City.
1953	USA [psychology]	US psychologist B F Skinner publishes Science and Human Behavior.
1953	USA [computing]	IBM introduces the IBM 650, the first computer to be produced in large numbers. It has a memory of 10 kilobytes.
1953	France, Ireland [fiction]	The Irish writer Samuel Beckett publishes his novel L'Innommable/The Unnamable in French. The English version appears in 1958. He also publishes his novel Watt.
1953	USA [fiction]	The US writer Saul Bellow publishes his novel The Adventures of Augie March.
1953	USA [fiction]	The US writer William Burroughs publishes his novel Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict.
1953	USA [fiction]	The US writer Raymond Chandler publishes his novel The Long Goodbye.
1953	England [fiction]	The English writer Ian Fleming publishes Casino Royale, the first James Bond thriller.
1953	France [art]	The French artist Henri Matisse creates his collage The Snail.
1 January 1953	Maldives [decolonization]	The Maldive Islands become independent under British protection. The new president, Amin Didi, plays centre forward in a ceremonial football match.
20 January 1953	USA [television]	Dwight D Eisenhower is inaugurated as 34th president of the USA. The ceremony is broadcast throughout the country on television for the first time.
5 March 1953	USSR [births and deaths]	Joseph Stalin (adopted name, Russian for steel, of Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili), secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1922–53, and premier 1941–53, dies in Moscow, USSR (73).
5 March 1953	USSR [administration]	Following the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, he is succeeded on 6 March by Georgi Malenkov (designated by Stalin), as chairman of the council of ministers.
April - July 1953	USA, UK [golf]	The US golfer Ben Hogan wins the US Masters, the US Open, and the British Open to become the first player to win three majors in a single year; he is unable to compete in the year's fourth major event, the US Professional Golfers Association (PGA) tournament, because the date clashes with that of the British Open.
25 April 1953	England, USA [biology]	English molecular biologist Francis Crick and US biologist James Watson announce the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, the basic material of heredity. They also theorize that if the strands are separated then each can form the template for the synthesis of an identical DNA molecule. It is perhaps the most important discovery in biology.
6 May 1953	Scotland [births and deaths]	Tony (Antony Charles Lynton) Blair, British prime minister from 1997, a Labour politician, is born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
6 May 1953	USA [surgery]	US physician John Gibbon performs the first successful open-heart operation. He uses a heart-lung machine to oxygenate the blood during the operation.
29 May 1953	Nepal [mountaineering]	Edmund Hilary from New Zealand and Sherpa Norkey Tenzing from Nepal, as part of John Hunt's British expedition, complete the first successful ascent of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain (8,848 m/29,028 ft) in the Himalayas, Nepal.
2 June 1953	UK [television]	The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II is watched on televisions in homes and public places, such as church halls, by an estimated 20 million viewers in Britain. The event also stimulates the purchase of television sets.
10 June - 19 June 1953	USA [civil rights]	A bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, results in an amendment of the rules requiring blacks to sit at the back of buses; it is the first major action of the modern civil-rights movement.
17 June 1953	East Germany [revolution]	A strike in East Berlin on 16 June turns into a rising against East Germany's communist government; in the afternoon the Soviet commandant of Berlin proclaims a state of emergency and Soviet military forces put down the rising.
18 June 1953	Egypt [administration]	A republic is proclaimed in Egypt, with General Muhammad Naguib Bey as president and prime minister, and Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser as deputy prime minister and minister of the interior.
21 June 1953	Pakistan [births and deaths]	Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan 1988–90 and from 1993, born in Karachi, Pakistan.
25 June 1953	USA [television]	The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) begins the first regular television broadcasts in colour, in the USA.
9 July 1953	USSR [political events]	Lavrenti Beria, the Soviet minister of internal affairs, is arrested (and shot on 23 December); his Politburo rivals for leadership of the USSR fear his potential power.
27 July 1953	North Korea, South Korea, China [Korean War (1950–53)]	Delegates from the United Nations (UN), North Korea, and China sign an armistice at Panmunjom, ending the Korean War.
28 September 1953	USA [births and deaths]	Edwin Powell Hubble, US astronomer who provided the first proof that the universe is expanding, dies in San Marino, California (63).
2 November 1953	Pakistan [decolonization]	The Constituent Assembly in Pakistan decides to declare the country a republic, within the British Commonwealth, as the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’.
25 November 1953	England [football]	England's footballers lose at Wembley in London, England, for the first time to an overseas team, beaten 6–3 by Hungary. Six months later, Hungary confirms its overwhelming superiority over England with a 7–1 victory in Budapest, Hungary.
December 1953	USA [food and drink]	‘TV dinners’, precooked frozen dinners, are introduced by the food processing company C A Swanson of Omaha, Nebraska.
December 1953	USA [magazines]	Hugh Hefner publishes the soft porn magazine Playboy in the USA. Its mixture of serious journalism, erotic fiction, and the nude feature ‘Playmate of the Month’ proves successful.