December 1953 in History

Events in History

Dec 3 US President Dwight Eisenhower criticizes Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy for saying communists are in the Republican Party

Dec 7 Israel's PM Ben-Gurion retires

Dec 8 Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations in New York
Dec 9 General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired

Dec 12 Chuck Yeager reaches Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane

Dec 16 1st White House Press Conference (President Eisenhower & 161 reporters)
Dec 16 Charles E Yeager fly > 2,575 kph in Bell X-1A
Dec 23 René Coty elected President of the Republic and the French Union on the 13th ballot [1]
Dec 24 Two fast express trains crash head-on killing 103 in Czechoslovakia
Dec 24 Wellington-Auckland (NZ) express train swept away in flood kills 166
Dec 25 Avalanche of lava kills 150 from Ruapehu volcano in New Zealand
Dec 25 KNEV (95.5 The Vibe) radio broadcaster in Reno, Nevada begins broadcasting
Dec 31 Hulan Jack sworn in as Manhattan Borough president

Dec 2 Meg Griffin, American DJ (WNEW-FM, WPLJ-FM, WKRK-FM)/VJ (V-1)
Dec 3 Robert Guédiguian, French director (The Snows of Kilimanjaro; Marius and Jeannette), born in Marseille, France
Dec 6 Wil Shriner, American talk show host (Wil Shriner Show), born in NYC, New York
Dec 8 Norman Finkelstein, American professor, activist

Dec 13 American economist and Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006-14, 2022 Nobel Prize), born in Augusta, Georgia

Dec 13 Thomas E. Sanders, American aerial cameraman (Living Daylights), born in San Pedro, California (d. 2017)
Dec 14 Mikael Odenberg, Swedish politician (Minister for Defence), born in Stockholm, Sweden
Dec 14 Vangelis Meimarakis, Greek lawyer and politician, born in Athens, Greece
Dec 15 J. M. DeMatteis, American comic book writer, born in Brooklyn, New York
Dec 18 David Chipperfield, English architect (Pritzker Prize - 2003), born in London, England [1]
Dec 18 Khas-Magomed Hadjimuradov, Chechen bard
Dec 23 Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, born in Madrid, Spain
Dec 24 François Loos, French politician, born in Strasbourg, France
Dec 26 Leonel Fernández, Dominican politician & President of the Dominican Republic (2004-12), born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Dec 26 Steve Sisolak, American politician & Governor of Nevada (2019-), born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Dec 26 Valeri Yuriyevich Sharov, Russian cosmonaut, born in Moscow
Dec 29 Stanley "Tookie" Williams, American gangster, born in Shreveport, Louisiana (d. 2005)
Dec 30 Bill Kazmaier, American powerlifter
Dec 30 Daniel T Barry, PhD/MD/astronaut (STS 72), born in Norwalk, Connecticut
Dec 30 Harald Schmautz, German-born journalist
Dec 30 Meredith Vieira, American television journalist
Dec 31 Yahya Ould Hademine, Mauritanian politician & 13th Prime Minister of Mauritania (2014-present), born in Timbédra, French West Africa

Dec 8 Prime Minister of Canada John Diefenbaker (58) weds second wife Olive Palmer (51) at Park Road Baptist Church in Toronto, Canada

Dec 2 Francis Picabia, French avante-garde artist, writer and typographist (Amorous Parade), dies at 74
Dec 6 Konstanty I Galczynski, Polish poet (Zielona Ges), dies at 48
Dec 10 Abdullah Yusuf Ali, British-Indian Islamic scholar and translator (translated Qu'ran into English), dies at 81
Dec 14 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American writer (The Yearling), dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at 57

Dec 19 American physicist (photoelectric effect; Nobel 1923), dies at 85

Dec 19 Rudolf Leonhard, writer, dies
Dec 20 Henry Horatio Dixon, Irish Biologist who originated the cohesion-tension theory of water and mineral movement in plants, dies at 84

Dec 23 Soviet politician and head of the NKVD secret service, executed after being ousted from power at 54

Dec 24 Ralph Linton, American cultural anthropologist (Tree of Culture), dies at 60
Dec 25 Lee Shubert, American theatre producer (theatres in NY & LA named after him), dies at about 80
Dec 31 Albert Plesman, Dutch aviation pioneer and founder (KLM), dies at 64