March 23 » The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is established by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian, British India.
March 31 » The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.
May 2 » Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, signs the Treaty of Wuchale, giving Italy control over Eritrea.
August 13 » William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut is granted United States Patent Number 408,709 for "Coin-controlled apparatus for telephones."
September 23 » Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.
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 19 » Almost 72 percent of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
May 18 » Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
June 17 » Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
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.
September 13 » Nikita Khrushchev is appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
December 10 » British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in literature.
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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