November 18, 1953: A killer smog settles over New York City, lasting 6 days, nearly into the long Thanksgiving weekend. There were 260 deaths attributed to it. Poet Dylan Thomas is sometimes said to be one of the victims, although his copious drinking is usually considered the cause of his death.
When Americans think of smog-ridden cities in their own country, the first one that usually comes to mind is Los Angeles. But New York was stricken a few times, and this wouldn't even be the worst of it: In 1963, over 400 people would die from it. Another 168 died from a smog settlement in 1966. The environmental regulations that came about thereafter have prevented more mass deaths, although the destruction of the original World Trade Center in 2001 provided similar conditions, many of them killing people in the long term.
The 1953 New York smog was quickly compared to the smog that hit London a year earlier. There were similar conditions: "Anticyclonic" conditions and inversions were present, accompanied by fog, with "insufficient atmospheric cleansing action" -- in other words, rain.
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November 18, 1953 was a Wednesrday. Actor Kevin Nealon, known for his work on Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was born.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 2 games played in the NBA, a doubleheader played at the Baltimore Coliseum. The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 88-83, despite 41 points from the Warriors' Neil Johnston. And the Baltimore Bullets beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 104-74.
And there was 1 game in the NHL: The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.
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