On 25 April 1953 the journal Nature published a one-page paper by James Watson and Francis Crick of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge proposing that DNA is a double helix: two strands twisted around each other, linked by pairs of bases, adenine with thymine, guanine with cytosine. The model relied on X-ray diffraction data produced by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling, including the famous Photo 51, and Maurice Wilkins at King's College London. It suggested at once how genetic information could be copied. Watson, Crick and Wilkins won the 1962 Nobel Prize; Franklin had died in 1958.
Before and after
- 20 January 1953Birth of Jeffrey Epstein
- 24 January 1953Birth of Moon Jae-in
- 19 February 1953Birth of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
- 5 March 1953Death of Joseph Stalin
- 25 April 1953Watson and Crick publish the structure of DNA
- 6 May 1953Birth of Tony Blair
- 16 May 1953Birth of Pierce Brosnan
- 17 May 1953Birth of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
- 15 June 1953Birth of Xi Jinping
More in Science & technology
- 1945Discovery of promethium
- 1950Discovery of californium
- 1952Discovery of einsteinium
- December 1952Discovery of fermium
- 1958Discovery of nobelium
- June 2002Discovery of oganesson
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.