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| Timeline for 1953 |
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In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. The Tenth Doctor considered it a great year, citing Technicolor, the climbing of Mount Everest and all food finally coming off the ration as his favourite bits. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern) The Eighth Doctor had similar sentiments, and wished to rewatch the Queen's Christmas speech with his granddaughter Susan on the Time-Space Visualiser. (AUDIO: Relative Dimensions)
Dated events
On 25 April, 1953, Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Rosalind Franklin discovered DNA. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary)
On 1 June-2 June, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster in London, an event which the Wire attempted to exploit by absorbing the identities of everyone watching the event on live television. The Tenth Doctor stopped and trapped her. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern) A later version of the Tenth Doctor, as well as the rest of their first thirteen numbered incarnations were present in London during the coronation, either directly witnessing or appearing in close proximity to it. This caused a large amount of confusion for Eva De Ville, who had been sent from the future by the CEO to assassinate the Thirteenth Doctor. (COMIC: Where's the Doctor?) No one in the Welsh village of Llanfer Ceiriog had a television, so the townsfolk travelled by bus to Doctor Snape's house in Gwydyr to watch it on his set. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark)
On 18 December, the aeroplane Sky Gypsy time travelled through the Cardiff Rift to more than fifty years in the future. (TV: Out of Time)
On 25 December, Queen Elizabeth II made her second annual Christmas speech. While his granddaughter Susan Campbell and great-grandson Alex Campbell were celebrating Christmas in the TARDIS with him and Lucie Miller, the Eighth Doctor wanted to watch this particular Christmas speech using the Time-Space Visualiser. (AUDIO: Relative Dimensions) John Ellis bought a football annual for his son Alan Ellis for Christmas. However, he was unable to give it to him due to his disappearance the previous week. (TV: Out of Time)
Undated events
Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, based on the witch trials at Salem Village, was written. (PROSE: The Witch Hunters)
The Long Coolth of Summer was produced by Linecross Distribution with a script brought back in time from 1985 by Michael Brookhaven. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart began his military career. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
The British Rocket Group sent an experimental three-manned mission into space. One astronaut returned, infected by an alien parasite. (PROSE: Background)
The BBC science fiction television series Nightshade, starring Edmund Trevithick as the title character, was first broadcast. (PROSE: Nightshade, PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)
A spacecraft carrying Rivesh Mantilax on a mission to rescue his wife, Seruba Velak, was shot down over Area 51 in the United States. He was rescued by a group of Native Americans led by Night Eagle and kept hidden from American authorities for the next five years. (TV: Dreamland)
The Mau Mau Uprising against the rule of the British Empire took place in British Kenya. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
It was discovered that the Piltdown Man was not the missing link in human evolution but a human cranium and a filed down ape jaw. (AUDIO: The Suffering)
In Hampton, Jim Sheldrake was born. The sceneshifters briefly visited the hospital to observe the newborn Sheldrake. (PROSE: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy)
In Scotland, Clement McDonald was born. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three)
The last known sighting of the Ilin Island cloudrunner occurred this year. In reality, the last one was sent to the Museum of the Last Ones. (PROSE: The Last Dodo)
In the FA Cup Final between Blackpool F.C. and Bolton Wanderers, Blackpool was down 3-1 when their player Stanley Matthews did three set-ups in the last 20 minutes, which allowed his team to score. Bill Perry scored the final goal of the match and Blackpool won 4-3. John Ellis charged his son Alan Ellis' friends a shilling each to watch the match on his new television. Alan enjoyed the match a great deal, punching the air when Perry scored the winning goal. He joked that Perry had wings on his feet, which was why he was called a winger. (TV: Out of Time)
Adrian Cooper played Romeo in David Owen's film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Cooper, who was famous for his ego, demanded that the script be rewritten so that Romeo survived and got the girl. (PROSE: Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes)
Laura Price was born. (AUDIO: Special Features)
Alternative timeline
In an alternative timeline in which Nazi Germany won World War II and eventually conquered Africa as a result of the Seventh Doctor and Ace accidentally leaving laser technology in Colditz Castle in October 1944, the Mau Mau Uprising against Nazi rule took place in Kenya. The Luftwaffe was sent in immediately. On the orders of the Führer Adolf Hitler, they proceeded to carpet-bomb the tribal areas and wipe out most of the native population. Within three years, a virulent plague had broken out in Kenya which killed many German soldiers. In 1957, Hitler placed Elizabeth Klein in command of a team of medical doctors and scientists who attempted to discover the cause of the plague. However, they were unable to do so. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)