Just for fun, here are some of the events that took place in 1953, the year that Ray published “Fahrenheit 451”.

“Casino Royale”, “Childhood’s End”, “Second Foundation” and “The Demolished Man” were published.

The first literature censorship board in the U.S. was started up in Georgia.

The films “Shane”, Disney’s “Peter Pan”, “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”, “It Come from Outer Space” and “The War of the Worlds” debut.

Queen Elizabeth was crowned and Tony Blair was born. Salk vaccine was introduced, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest and Jackie Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier. Incidentally, the picture we always see of the person in the helmet on top of Everest is not Sir Edmund. It is Norgay. Sir Edmund was the only one who knew how to use the camera.

And the “Trust me I know what I’m doing, oops of the year”: “March 11 - U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Fortunately it fails to detonate.”

Well, the bomb was disarmed, it contained no fissionable material. Only the detonator device, which did go off, and which was enough to destroy the home it dropped near.

Fascinating. I only knew the headline. Never knew any of the details.

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Notable that two of the movies: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and It Came From Outer Space, were two of Ray's movies.