August 1953 in Asia

On 19 August 1953, Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup d'état that strengthened the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. In the months preceding the coup, Mosaddegh had consolidated power by orchestrating an unconstitutional referendum to dissolve parliament that was widely described as fraudulent, and he later refused to step down after the Shah exercised his constitutional authority to dismiss him as prime minister. It was instigated by the United Kingdom (MI6), under the name Operation Boot and the United States (CIA), under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax. A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mosaddegh nationalized the country's oil industry.

RDS-6s (; American codename: "Joe 4") was the first Soviet test of a boosted fission weapon that occurred on August 12, 1953, that detonated with an energy equivalent to 400 kilotons of TNT.

RDS-4 (, also known as Tatyana) was a Soviet nuclear bomb that was first tested at Semipalatinsk Test Site, on August 23, 1953. The device weighed approximately . The device was approximately one-third the size of the RDS-3. The bomb was dropped from an IL-28 aircraft at an altitude of and exploded at , with a yield of 28 kt.

1953 operation in the First Indochina War