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.
June 3 » The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.
July 11 » Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.
September 28 » The General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter.
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
January 5 » The play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett receives its première in Paris.
February 28 » James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April's Nature (pub. April 2).
April 8 » Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by British Kenya's rulers.
July 26 » Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment repel a number of Chinese assaults against a key position known as The Hook during the Battle of the Samichon River, just hours before the Armistice Agreement is signed, ending the Korean War.
November 21 » The Natural History Museum, London announces that the "Piltdown Man" skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, is a hoax.
December 6 » Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.
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 20, 2026), "Jacobus Johannes van Niekerk (1889-1953)".
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