February 11 » Meiji Constitution of Japan is adopted.
February 22 » President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.
April 1 » The University of Northern Colorado was established, as the Colorado State Normal School.
July 11 » Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.
August 4 » The Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.
August 13 » William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut is granted United States Patent Number 408,709 for "Coin-controlled apparatus for telephones."
Day of death October 15, 1953
The temperature on October 15, 1953 was between 11.7 °C and 14.5 °C and averaged 13.0 °C. There was 0.1 mm of rain. The almost completely overcast was. The average windspeed was 2 Bft (weak wind) and was prevailing from the north. Source: KNMI
February 3 » The Batepá massacre occurred in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleashed a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros.
April 24 » Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
May 25 » Nuclear weapons testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
July 17 » The largest number of United States midshipman casualties in a single event results from an aircraft crash in Florida, killing 44.
August 12 » The first testing of a real thermonuclear weapon (not test devices): The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4), the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.
December 8 » U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Hendrik Dreyer, "Dreyer Tree", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/dreyer-tree/I8393.php : accessed January 23, 2026), "Jacobus Johannes van Niekerk (1889-1953)".
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