Timeline April 1953

Events in April 1953 4

• 1953 CIA Launches MKUltra Program Covert mind-control research begins The Central Intelligence Agency authorized Project MKUltra, a covert program researching behavioral modification and interrogation techniques, including the use of drugs such as LSD on unwitting subjects. The program ran for two decades before being curtailed and later exposed by congressional investigations in the 1970s. It remains one of the most notorious episodes in CIA history.
• 1953 Ian Fleming publishes Casino Royale Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, introducing the world to Agent 007 of the British Secret Service. Fleming based Bond partly on himself and wartime intelligence colleagues. The book sells out its first print run of 4,750 copies within a month.
• 1953 Nature publishes the DNA structure papers Three companion papers, including one by Franklin and Gosling, appear together in the same issue On 25 April 1953, the journal Nature published three papers in the same issue: Watson and Crick's proposal of the double-helix structure, a supporting paper by Wilkins and colleagues, and a third by Franklin and Gosling presenting their X-ray diffraction evidence for the B-form of DNA. Although published together, Watson and Crick's paper appeared first and received the most attention, while Franklin's independently derived experimental evidence was framed as merely confirmatory rather than foundational. The arrangement of the papers has since been cited as an example of how credit was distributed unevenly relative to scientific contribution.
• 1953 – 2003 Roberto Bolano (1953-2003) Died 15 July 2003, aged 50 Roberto Bolano was a Chilean novelist and poet whose reputation grew rapidly after his death with the international success of 'The Savage Detectives' and the posthumous '2666'. He spent much of his life in Mexico and Spain and died awaiting a liver transplant.