When the world watched the first coronation

King Charles III will be crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey in an event full of all the pageantry Britain can muster.

Enrobed clergymen will hand over the medieval symbols of power — the rod, the scepter and the orb. Brass bands and soldiers in bearskin hats will troop through the streets. And the new king and queen will presumably end the day on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to wave to the cheering crowds.

All this has happened before. Decades ago, back in 1953. 

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned as the 39th monarch and it was the world's first televised coronation. It was the first time that people were witness to the grandeur of a monarch.