January 13 » First Italo-Ethiopian War: the war's opening battle, the Battle of Coatit, occurs; it is an Italian victory.
February 1 » Fountains Valley, Pretoria, the oldest nature reserve in Africa, is proclaimed by President Paul Kruger.
February 9 » William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
June 20 » The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is officially opened.
June 27 » The inaugural run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue from Washington, D.C., to New York City, the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.
October 22 » In Paris an express train derails after overrunning the buffer stop, crossing almost 30 metres (100ft) of concourse before crashing through a wall and falling 10 metres (33ft) to the road below.
Day of death February 8, 1953
The temperature on February 8, 1953 was between -6.5 °C and 1.9 °C and averaged -2.4 °C. There was 3.0 mm of rain during 6.5 hours. There was 1.1 hours of sunshine (12%). The almost completely overcast was. The average windspeed was 4 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the south. Source: KNMI
February 19 » Book censorship in the United States: The Georgia Literature Commission is established.
April 25 » Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA.
May 18 » Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
June 26 » Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo.
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.
November 9 » Cambodia gains independence from France.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Hans Weening, "Family tree Weening", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-weening/I108434.php : accessed October 16, 2026), "Marten Gerrit van der Hei (1895-1953)".
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