Jan 1Dmitri Shostakovich completes his 5th string quartet - premieres Leningrad 1953

Jan 5Darius Milhaud's orchestral composition "West Point Suite", marking the US Military Academy's sesquicentennial, premieres at Carnegie Hall, NYC

Jan 9 Marines give notice that they will recallTed Williams to active duty

Jan 10 "The Greatest Show on Earth", directed and produced byCecil B. DeMille, starringJames Stewart andCharlton Heston, premieres in New York (Best Picture 1953)

Jan 10Jean Anouilh's play "La valse des toréadors" (The Waltz of the Toreadors) premieres at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées in Paris

Jan 16 US Standard Board clearsStan Musial to get an $85,000 salary

Jan 20 The NBA's first superstarGeorge Mikan scores a career high 61 points leading the Minneapolis Lakers to a 91-81 double-overtime victory over the Rochester Royals

Jan 21Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress Party wins India's first general election

Jan 25 Test debut of great Australian cricket captain (62 Tests) and broadcasterRichie Benaud, v West Indies at the SCG

Feb 2B.B. King's “3 O’Clock Blues” hits #1 on the US Billboard's R&B hit parade to become his first national hit

Feb 2Hubert de Givenchy presents his first collection in Paris with Bettina Graziani opening the show

Feb 4 "Tetsuwan Atom" byOsamu Tezuka first published in Weekly Shonen Magazine in Japan

Feb 4Jackie Robinson becomes the 1st African American executive of a major US TV and radio station as Director of Community Activities at radio WNBC-NY and TV station WNBT

Feb 6Queen Elizabeth II succeeds KingGeorge VI to the British throne and is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

Feb 13 Future world championRocky Marciano knocks out Italian heavyweight boxer Gino Buonvino in the 2nd round at Rhode Island Auditorium, Providence for his 40th straight win

Feb 15 KingGeorge VI is buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England

Feb 19 American defending championDick Button becomes 1st figure-skater to land a triple jump in competition; performs triple loop in Olympic free skate in Oslo; wins gold medal ahead of Austria’s Helmut Seibt

Feb 20 "African Queen" film directed by John Huston, starringHumphrey Bogart andKatharine Hepburn is released in the US

Feb 20 Britain's Jeannette Altwegg wins the Olympic women’s figure skating gold medal at the Olso Winter Games ahead of AmericanTenley Albright, who goes on to win in Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956)

Feb 26 PMWinston Churchill announces Britain has its own atomic bomb

Feb 28Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada

Mar 5Terence Rattigan's stage drama "Deep Blue Sea" premieres in London

Mar 10 Military coup led by GeneralFulgencio Batista in Cuba

Mar 21 20,000 people attempt to attend the first-ever rock & roll concert when Alan Freed presents "The Moondog Coronation Ball" at the old 12,000-seat Cleveland Arena; performers include Paul Williams and the Hucklebuckers,Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders, The Dominoes, and Varetta Dillard

Mar 26 Friedrich Durrenmatt's "Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi" premieres in Munich

Mar 27 "Singin' in the Rain," a musical comedy film directed byGene Kelly and Stanley Donen and starring Gene Kelly andDebbie Reynolds, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in NYC

Mar 27 Failed assassination attempt of West German ChancellorKonrad Adenauer

Apr 3 DutchQueen Juliana speaks to US Congress

Apr 22Eugene Ionesco's "Les Chaises" premieres in NYC

Apr 23 Bob Cain of St. Louis Browns andBob Feller of Cleveland Indians each pitch a one-hitter, as the home team wins 1-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, Missouri

Apr 23 New York GiantHoyt Wilhelm wins his 1st game in relief & hits his only HR

Apr 26Patty Berg scores 64, best competitive round of golf by a woman

Apr 28Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Commander of NATO

May 2John Cage's "Water Music" - for a solo pianist, using a piano, a radio, whistles, water containers, and a deck of cards - premieres in New York City

May 10 5th Cannes Film Festival: "The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice" directed byOrson Welles and "Two Cents Worth of Hope" directed by Renato Castellani jointly awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film

May 15Johnny Longden becomes 2nd jockey to ride 4,000 winners

May 18 ProfessorWillard Libby says England's prehistoric monument of Stonehenge dates back to 1848 BC

May 19 "Time" magazine features 'Theseus', an electrical learning machine built by American scientistClaude Shannon - the 1st example of AI[1]

Jun 1 Catholic church puts Andre Gides "Labor" on the index

Jun 5 1st sporting event televised nationally -Jersey Joe Walcott beatsEzzard Charles in 15 rounds for heavyweight boxing title, at Municipal Stadium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jun 11 Opening batsman Len Hutton becomes the 1st professional cricketer to captain England in Tests

Jun 14 Boston BraveWarren Spahn ties NL record held by Jim Whitney with 18 strikeouts against the Cubs in 15 innings

Jun 14 British runnerJim Peters runs world record marathon (2:20:42.2)

Jun 21Louis Braille's remains are transferred to the Panthéon in Paris, while his hands are kept as relics at Coupvray cemetery[1]

Jun 26Nelson Mandela and 51 others infringe South Africa's curfew

Jul 17 Shah of PersiaMohammad Reza Pahlavi names Ghavam Sultaneh premier

Jul 21 "The Quiet Man" film directed byJohn Ford and starringJohn Wayne andMaureen O'Hara is released in the UK

Jul 24 "High Noon", American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann, starringGary Cooper and Thomas Mitchell, is released