June 1953

• Uprising in Plzeň: Currency reform causes riots in Czechoslovakia.
• Died: Alex James, Scottish football (soccer) player (b. 1901)

• Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey.

• Born:Erland Van Lidth De Jeude, Dutch-born wrestler, opera singer and actor (d. 1987)

• Died:
  • William Farnum, American actor (b. 1876)
  • Bill Tilden, American tennis champion (b. 1893)
  • Roland Young, English actor (b. 1887)

• Italian general election: the Christian Democracy party wins a plurality in both legislative houses.

• Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado kills 115 in Flint, Michigan (the last in the United States to claim more than 100 lives until the 2011 Joplin tornado).
• Austria and the Soviet Union form diplomatic relations.
• Born: Ivo Sanader, the "Ćaća", Prime minister of Croatia

• CIA Technical Services Staff head Sidney Gottlieb approves of the use of LSD in a MKUltra subproject.
• Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts, killing 94.
• Died: Godfrey Tearle, American actor (b. 1884)

• Deputy British Prime Minister Anthony Eden undergoes a biliary tract operation, carried out by Dr. Richard Cattell at the New England Baptist Hospital in Boston.

• Hungarian Prime Minister Mátyás Rákosi is replaced by Imre Nagy.

• "The sad story of Henry" was adapted for television with disastrous results. A model of one of the characters became derailed due to faulty points and a crew members hand put it back on the tracks again.

• Died:Henry Scattergood, American cricketer (b. 1877)

• The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia restored diplomatic relations. (→ Tito–Stalin split in 1948)

• The uprising of 1953 in East Germany was brutally suppressed; June 17 was celebrated in West Germany as German Unity Day until after German reunification occurred.[1]

• Egypt declares itself a republic, after last year's revolution.
• Tachikawa air disaster: A United States Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashes just after takeoff from Tachikawa Airfield near Tokyo, Japan, killing all 129 people on board in the worst air crash in history at this time and the first with a confirmed death toll exceeding 100.
• Died: René Fonck, French aviator, top Allied World War I Flying Ace (b. 1894)

• Baton Rouge bus boycott begins.
• Died:
  • Harold Cazneaux, Australian photographer (b. 1878)
  • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, American communist spies (b. 1918 and 1915, respectively) (executed on same day)
  • Norman Ross, American Olympic swimmer (b. 1896)

• Born:Ulrich Mühe, German actor (d. 2007)

• Born:Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 2007)

• Born:Cyndi Lauper, American singer, songwriter, and actress

• Event: The Sad Story of Henry Broadcast on BBC Children's Hour - Point's not set right. Henry derailed (in the poem made after the incident "Fell of with a fright") and a hand was shown putting Henry back on the rails. Project cancelled. Poem made after derailment:

Once an engine attached to a train Was afraid of a few drops of rain The points weren't set right He fell of with a fright And a hand put it back on again

• Deposed:Lavrentiy Beria, Soviet internal affairs minister and former NKVD leader (b. 1899)

• The first Chevrolet Corvette is built at Flint, Michigan.
• First roll-on/roll-off ferry crossing of the English Channel, Dover–Boulogne.[2]
• Died: Elsa Beskow, Swedish author and illustrator of children's books (b. 1874)