Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1953

January

• January 7 - President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.
• January 12 - Estonian émigrés found a government in exile in Oslo.
• January 14 - Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yugoslavia.
• January 14 - The CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the UFO phenomenon.
• January 15 - Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying.
• January 19 - 68% of all television sets in the United States are tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
• January 20 - Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeds Harry S. Truman as President of the United States.
• January 22 - The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opens on Broadway.
• January 24 - Mau Mau rebels in Kenya kill the Ruck family (the father, mother and a 6-year-old son.
• January 26 - Walter Ulbricht announces that the agriculture will be collectivized in East Germany.
• January 28 - Derek Bentley is executed for murder in Wandsworth Prison.
• January 31 - February 1 - The North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland), 307 in the United Kingdom and several hundred at sea, including 133 on the ferry Princess Victoria in the Irish Sea.

February

• February 1 - The surge of the North Sea Flood of 1953 continues from the previous day.
• February 5 - The movie Peter Pan premieres at the Roxy Theatre, New York City.
• February 11 - President Eisenhower refuses a clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
• February 11 - The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel.
• February 13 - Transsexual Christine Jorgenson returns to New York after successful sexual reassignment surgery in Denmark.
• February 16 - The Pakistan Academy of Sciences is established in Pakistan.
• February 18 - The first 3-D film, Bwana Devil, opens.
• February 19 - Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.
• February 28 - James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce that they have discovered the structure of the DNA molecule.
• February 28 - Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia sign the Balkan Pact.

March

• March 1 - Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses after an all-night dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev. The stroke paralyzes the right side of his body.
• March 1 - Bernard Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg is made deputy constable and lieutenant governor of Windsor Castle.
• March 5 - Joseph Stalin dies after 31 years of ruling the Soviet Union.
• March 6 - Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• March 13 - The United Nations Security Council nominates Dag Hammarskjöld as United Nations Secretary General.
• March 14 - Nikita Khruschev is selected First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
• March 17 - A nuclear test is conducted in Nevada, with 1,620 spectators at 3.4 km (2.1 miles).
• March 18 - An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 250.
• March 19 - The 25th Academy Awards ceremony is held (the first one broadcast on television).
• March 25 - 26 - Lari Massacre in Kenya: Mau Mau rebels kill up to 150 Kikuyu natives.
• March 26 - Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
• March 31 - Due to increasingly lower ridership, Staten Island Rapid Transit closes 2 of its 3 passenger lines (South Beach & North Shore).

April

• April 7 - Dag Hammarskjöld is elected United Nations Secretary General.
• April 8 - Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to 7 years in prison for the alleged organization of the Mau Mau Rebellion.
• April 10 - Melbourne Knights is founded as Croatia SC in Melbourne.
• April 13 - Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale in the United Kingdom.
• April 13- The German football team S.G. Dynamo Dresden is founded.
• April 25 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish their description of the double helix structure of DNA.(::Watson, J. D. and Crick, F. H. C. (1953). Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171, 737-738.)

May

Mount Everest.

• May 1 Guy Degrenne's timeless teapot Salam is designed.
• May 2 - Hussein is crowned King of Jordan.
• May 2 - 38-year-old Stanley Matthews is finally on the winning side in the FA Cup, in his third final.
• 5 May - Aldous Huxley first tries the psychedelic hallucinogen mescaline, inspiring his book The Doors of Perception.
• May 9 - France agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia with King Norodom Sihanouk.
• May 10 - The town of Chemnitz in East Germany becomes Karl Marx Stadt.
• May 11 - The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak: A F5 tornado hits in the downtown section of Waco, Texas, killing 114.
• May 18 - At Rogers Dry Lake, California Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier (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

• June 2 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
• June 7 - Italian general election, 1953: The Christian Democrats win a plurality in both legislative houses.
• June 8 - Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado kills 115 in Flint, Michigan (the last to claim more than 100 lives).
• June 8 - Austria and the Soviet Union form diplomatic relations.
• June 9 - CIA Technical Services Staff head Sidney Gottlieb approves of the use of LSD in a MKULTRA subproject.
• June 9 - Flint-Worcester Tornadoes: A tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts, killing 94.
• June 12 - Currency reform causes riots in Czechoslovakia.
• June 13 - Hungarian Prime Minister Mátyás Rákosi is replaced by Imre Nagy.
• June 16 - The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia form diplomatic relations.
• June 17 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
• June 18 - Egypt declares itself a republic.
• June 19 - Convicted Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed.
• June 30 - The first Chevrolet Corvette is built at Flint, Michigan.

July

• July 4 - Strikes and riots hit coal mining regions in Poland.
• July 5 - The European Economic Community holds its first assembly in Strasbourg, France.
• July 10 - The Soviet official paper Pravda announces that Lavrenti Beria has been deposed as head of the NKVD.
• July 26 - Fidel Castro and his brother lead a disastrous assault on the Moncada Barracks, preliminary to the Cuban Revolution.
• July 26 - The Short Creek Raid is carried out on a polygynous Mormon sect in Arizona.
• July 27 - The Korean War ends: The United States, People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea sign an armistice agreement.

August

• August 5 - Operation Big Switch: Prisoners of war are repatriated after the Korean War.
• August 7 - Ohio is admitted as a U. S. state, retroactive to 1803.
• August 8 - Soviet prime minister Georgi Malenkov announces that the Soviet Union has a hydrogen bomb.
• August 12 - A magnitude 7.2 earthquake totally devastates most of the Ionian Sea islands, in Greece's worst natural disaster in centuries.
• August 13 - 4 million workers go on strike in France to protest austerity measures.
• August 17 - The first planning session of Narcotics Anonymous is held in Southern California (see October 5).
• August 18 - The Kinsey Report on American sexual habits is issued.
• August 19 - Cold War: The CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, and retain Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne (see Operation Ajax).
• August 20 - The French government ousts the sultan of Morocco and exiles him to Corsica.
• August 20 - The United States gives West Germany 382 ships it had captured during World War II.
• August 25 - The general strike ends in France.

September

• September 4 - The discovery of REM sleep is first published by researchers Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman.
• September 5 - The United Nations rejects the Soviet Union's suggestion to accept China as a member.
• September 7 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
• September 25 - A hurricane in South-East Asia kills over 1,000.
• September 25 - The first German prisoners of war return from the Soviet Union to West Germany.
• September 26 - Rationing of cane sugar ends in the UK.

October

• October
  • The UNIVAC 1103 is the first commercial computer to use random access memory.
  • The United States tests the H-Bomb.
• October 5 - Earl Warren is appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• October 5 - The first meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held (the first planning session was held August 17).
• October 9 - Konrad Adenauer is re-elected as German chancellor.
• October 9 - The Guyanese constitution is suspended.
• October 12 - The play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York.
• October 23 - The Philippines' DZAQ-TV3 (now ABS-CBN) makes its initial telecast, becoming Asia's first commercial television broadcaster.
• October 30 - Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document of the United States National Security Council NSC 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

November

• November 5 - David Ben-Gurion resigns as prime minister of Israel.
• November 9 - Cambodia becomes independent from France.
• November 21 - Puerto Williams is founded in Chile as the southernmost settlement of the world.
• November 21 - Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce that the skull of the Piltdown Man, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax.
• November 25 - England loses 6-3 to Hungary at Wembley Stadium, their first ever loss to a continental team at home.
• November 29 - French paratroopers take Dien Bien Phu.
• November 30 - Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda, is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Benjamin Cohen, Governor of Uganda.

December

• Hugh Hefner publishes the first issue of Playboy Magazine, selling 54,175 copies at $.50 each.
• December 2 - The United Kingdom and Iran reform diplomatic relations.
• December 6 - With the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Arturo Toscanini performs what he claims is his favorite Beethoven symphony, Eroica, for the last time. The live performance is broadcast nationwide on radio, and later released on records and CD.
• December 8 - U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his Atoms for Peace address to the UN General Assembly in New York City.
• December 10 - Albert Schweitzer is given the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.
• December 17 - The FCC approves color television.
• December 23 - The Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrenti Beria has been executed.
• December 24 - Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand, sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River; 153 are killed.
• December 30 - The first color television sets go on sale for about $1,175 (American dollars).

Undated

• The Japanese 10 yen coin is issued with serrated edges for a 5-year period, beginning in 1953. All 10 yen coins since have had smooth edges.
• Heavy massive rain, landslides, and flooding in western and southwestern Japan kill an estimated 2,566, and injure 9,433, mainly at Kizugawa, Wakayama, Kumamoto and Kitakyushu (June-August).

Ongoing

• Marshall Plan
• First Indochina War

Births

January-February

• January 4 - George Tenet, American Central Intelligence Agency director
• January 4 - Timothy F. Bresnahan, American economist
• January 5 - Mike Rann, Australian politician
• January 6 - Malcolm Young, Australian musician
• January 8 - Bruce Sutter, America baseball player
• January 10 - Pat Benatar, American rock singer (Hit Me With Your Best Shot)
• January 10 - Dennis Cooper, American author
• January 10 - Bobby Rahal, American race car driver
• January 15 - Kent Hovind, American creation science evangelist
• January 15 - Randy White, American football player
• January 18 - Brett Hudson, American musician
• January 19 - Desi Arnaz Jr., American actor
• January 19 - Richard Legendre, Canadian tennis player and politician
• January 21 - Paul Allen, American entrepreneur
• January 22 - Jim Jarmusch, American director
• January 23 - John Luther Adams, American composer
• January 26 - Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark
• January 26 - Lucinda Williams, American singer/songwriter
• January 28 - Colin Campbell, Canadian ice hockey player and executive
• January 29 - Teresa Teng, Chinese singer
• January 31 - Sergei Ivanov, first deputy prime minister of Russia and former minister of defense of Russia
• February 2 - Duane Chapman, American bounty hunter
• February 7 - Dan Quisenberry, American baseball player (d. 1998)
• February 8 - Mary Steenburgen, American actress (Back to the Future: Part III)
• February 9 - Ciarán Hinds, Irish actor
• February 9 - Rick Wagoner, American automotive executive
• February 10 - June Jones, American quarterback and current NCAA Football head coach at Southern Methodist University
• February 11 - Philip Anglim, American actor
• February 11 - Jeb Bush, American politician
• February 11 - Alan Rubin, American musician
• February 17 - Janice Dickinson, American model
• February 17 - Norman Pace, British actor and comedian
• February 20 - Riccardo Chailly, Italian conductor
• February 21 - William Petersen, American actor
• February 23 - Paul Krugman, American economist
• February 25 - José María Aznar, Spanish politician
• February 25 - Martin Kippenberger, German artist
• February 26 - Michael Bolton, American pop singer (Time, Love and Tenderness)
• February 28 - Osmo Vänskä, Finnish orchestral conductor
• February 28 - Ricky Steamboat, American professional wrestler

March-April

• March 1 - Richard Bruton, Irish politician and economist
• March 2 - Russell Feingold, U. S. Senator
• March 3 - Arthur Antunes Coimbra, Brazilian soccer player and manager
• March 4 - Emilio Estefan, Cuban percussionist
• March 4 - Rose Laurens, French singer-songwriter
• March 4 - Kay Lenz, American actress
• March 6 - Jan Kjærstad, Norwegian author
• March 6 - Jacklyn Zeman, American actress
• March 7 - Leon Sylvers III, African-American singer, writer, music producer (The Sylvers)
• March 10 - Debbie Brill, Canadian high jumper
• March 11 - Bernie LaBarge, Canadian guitarist/vocalist
• March 12 - Madhav Kumar Nepal, Nepalese politician
• March 12 - Carl Hiaasen, American author
• March 12 - Ron Jeremy, American actor
• March 16 - Isabelle Huppert, French actress
• March 16 - Richard Stallman, American free software proponent
• March 17 - Filemon Lagman, Filipino revolutionary (d. 2001)
• March 18 - Takashi Yoshimatsu, Japanese composer
• March 22 - Kenneth Rogoff, American economist
• March 23 - Chaka Khan, African-American soul singer (I Feel For You)
• March 26 - Lincoln Chafee, U.S. Senator
• March 26 - Elaine Chao, U.S. Secretary of Labor
• April 1 - Barry Sonnenfeld, American film producer and director
• April 2 - Jim Allister, Irish politician
• April 2 - David Robinson, American drummer
• April 3 - Sandra Boynton, American author, songwriter, and illustrator
• April 4 - Robert Bertrand, Canadian politician
• April 6 - Andy Hertzfeld, American computer programmer
• April 11 - Andrew Wiles, British-born mathematician
• April 16 - J. Neil Schulman, American writer and activist
• April 16 - Peter Garrett, Australian musician and politician (Midnight Oil)
• April 18 - Rick Moranis, Canadian actor (SCTV)
• April 19 - Ruby Wax, American-born British comedian
• April 20 - Sebastian Faulks, English novelist
• April 20 - Michael Q. Schmidt, American actor and model
• April 22 - Juhani Komulainen, Finnish composer
• April 29 - Nikolai Budarin, Russian cosmonaut
• April 30 - Rebecca Fransway, American author
• April 30 - Merrill Osmond, American pop singer

May-June

• May 4 - Salman Hashimikov, Soviet heavyweight wrestler
• May 5 - Dieter Zetsche, German auto executive
• May 6 - Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• May 7 - Ian McKay, British soldier, (VC recipient) (d. 1982)
• May 8 - Alex Van Halen, Dutch-born American rock musician (Van Halen)
• May 15 - George Brett, American Major League Baseball player
• May 15 - Mike Oldfield, English composer (Tubular Bells)
• May 16 - Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor (James Bond: 007)
• May 19 - Victoria Wood, British actress
• May 20 - Robert Doyle, Australian politician
• May 24 - Alfred Molina, English actor (Luther)
• May 26 - Michael Portillo, English politician
• May 29 - Aleksandr Abdulov, Russian actor (d. 2008)
• May 29 - Danny Elfman, American composer
• May 30 - Colm Meaney, Irish actor
• May 31 - Kathie Sullivan, American singer
• June 1 - David Berkowitz, American serial killer
• June 4 - Susumu Ojima, Japanese entrepreneur
• June 7 - Dougie Donnelly, Scottish television broadcaster
• June 10 - John Edwards, American politician
• June 13 - Tim Allen, American actor (Home Improvement)
• June 20 - Ulrich Mühe, German actor (d. 2007)
• June 21 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 2007)
• June 22 - Cyndi Lauper, American singer (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)
• June 24 - Ivo Lill, Estonian artist

July-August

• July 6 - Nanci Griffith, American folk singer-songwriter
• July 9 - François Diederich, Luxembourgish chemist
• July 11 - Bramwell Tovey, British conductor and composer
• July 14 - Bebe Buell, American model and singer
• July 15 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti
• July 15 - Mila Pivnicki, wife of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney
• July 22 - Sylvia Chang, Taiwanese actress
• July 24 - Claire McCaskill, U.S. Senator
• July 25 - Tim Gunn, American fashion expert
• July 26 - Robert Phillips, American guitarist
• July 27 - Yahoo Serious, Australian filmmaker
• July 29 - Ken Burns, American documentary filmmaker
• July 29 - Geddy Lee, Canadian rock musician (Rush)
• August 5 - Rick Mahler, American baseball player (d. 2005)
• August 7 - Anne Fadiman, American writer, daughter of Clifton Fadiman
• August 8 - Nigel Mansell, English Formula One driver
• August 9 - Robert Cray, American musician
• August 11 - Hulk Hogan, American professional wrestler
• August 14 - Cliff Johnson, American game designer
• August 16 - Kathie Lee Gifford, American singer and actress
• August 18 - Louie Gohmert, American politician
• August 19 - Benoît Régent, French actor (d. 1994)
• August 24 - Ron Holloway, American tenor saxophonist
• August 26 - Pat Sharkey, Irish footballer
• August 27 - Alex Lifeson, Canadian rock musician (Rush)
• August 29 - James Quesada, Nicaraguan-born anthropologist
• August 30 - Robert Parish, American basketball player
• August 31 - György Károly, Hungarian author

September-October

• September 2 - John Zorn, American musician
• September 4 - Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, African-American actor (Welcome Back, Kotter)
• September 4 - Fatih Terim, Turkish soccer player and manager
• September 7 - Mammootty, Indian actor
• September 8 - Stu Ungar, American poker player (d. 1998)
• September 10 - Amy Irving, American actress
• September 11 - Lesley Visser, American sportscaster and journalist
• September 12 - Stephen Sprouse, American fashion designer, artist, and photographer (d. 2004)
• September 18 - Betsy Boze, American dean and CEO, Kent State University Stark
• September 21 - Andrew Heermans, American musician, recording engineer, music producer
• September 22 - Ségolène Royal, French politician
• September 23 - Alexey Maslov, commander-in-chief of the Russian Ground Forces
• September 27 - Greg Ham, Australian rock musician (Men at Work)
• September 29 - Denis Potvin, Canadian Hall of Fame hockey player
• September 30 - Deborah Allen, American singer
• October 2 - Brandon Wilson, American author and explorer
• October 7 - Christopher Norris, British critical theorist
• October 7 - Tico Torres, American rock musician (Bon Jovi)
• October 9 - Tony Shalhoub, American actor (Monk)
• October 14 - Shelley Ackerman, American astrologer, actress, writer
• October 12 - Serge Lepeltier, French politician
• October 12 - Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
• October 21 - Hugh Wolff, American orchestral conductor
• October 27 - Robert Picardo, American actor (Star Trek: Voyager)
• October 27 - Peter Firth, British actor
• October 31 - Michael J. Anderson, American actor

November-December

• November 3 - Dennis Miller, American comedian and radio host (Saturday Night Live)
• November 4 - Carlos Gutierrez, American politician
• November 5 - Florentino V. Floro, Filipino dwarf judge
• November 11 - Harley Venton, American actor
• November 13 - Waswo_X._Waswo, American photographer
• November 14 -