April 2 » "Electric Theatre", the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.
April 18 » The 7.5 Mw Guatemala earthquake shakes Guatemala with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing between 800–2,000.
May 8 » In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
October 24 » Guatemala's Santa María Volcano begins to erupt, becoming the third-largest eruption of the 20th century.
December 14 » The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.
Day of death May 16, 1953
The temperature on May 16, 1953 was between 12.8 °C and 26.3 °C and averaged 17.6 °C. There was 1.7 mm of rain during 0.2 hours. There was 7.1 hours of sunshine (45%). The partly or heavily clouded was. The average windspeed was 4 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the southwest. Source: KNMI
February 19 » Book censorship in the United States: The Georgia Literature Commission is established.
May 4 » Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
June 19 » Cold War: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.
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.
December 6 » Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.
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: Peeters Mathieu, "FutureHistory", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-riske/I24729.php : accessed February 8, 2026), "Petrus Camillius van Steen (1902-1953)".
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