January 5, 1953

1953George Tenet, American civil servant and academic, 18th Director of Central Intelligence^[†]

George John Tenet is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

1953The play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett receives its première in Paris.^[†]

Waiting for Godot is a tragicomedy play by Irish playwright and writer Samuel Beckett, first published in 1952 by Les Éditions de Minuit. It is Beckett's reworking of his own original French-language play titled En attendant Godot, and is subtitled in English as "A tragicomedy in two acts." The play revolves around the mannerisms of the two main characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), who engage in a variety of thoughts, dialogues and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives. It is Beckett's best-known literary work and is regarded by critics as "one of the most enigmatic plays of modern literature". In a poll conducted by London's Royal National Theatre in the year 1998, Waiting for Godot was voted as "the most significant English-language play of the 20th century."