On This Day

April 1954 in History

Events in History

  • Apr 1 US Air Force Academy established
  • Apr 1 1st Dutch motorway, Amsterdam-Utrecht, opens
  • Apr 1 1st US Army helicopter battalion forms, Fort Bragg, NC
  • Apr 1 Earthquake/tsunami ravage Aleutians, 200 killed
  • Apr 3 Don Perry climbs a 20' rope in under 2.8 seconds (AAU record)
  • Apr 6 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island
  • Apr 7 German government refuses to recognize DDR

Conference of Interest

Apr 7 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in news conference is first to voice fear of a "domino-effect" of communism in Indo-China

Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th US President & WWII General Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • Apr 12 Belgian Van Houtte government resigns
  • Apr 12 Joe Turner releases "Shake, Rattle & Roll"

Historic Event

Apr 13 Robert Oppenheimer accused of being a communist

Robert Oppenheimer
Physicist and Father of the Atomic Bomb Robert Oppenheimer
  • Apr 14 Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov asks for politics asylum in Canberra

Historic Event

Apr 18 Egyptian Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes power and appoints himself Prime Minister

Gamal Abdel Nasser
President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser

Historic Event

Apr 21 Georgi Malenkov becomes premier of USSR

Georgy Malenkov
Soviet Leader Georgy Malenkov
  • Apr 21 USAF flies French battalion to Vietnam
  • Apr 22 Achiel van Acker forms Belgian government
  • Apr 22 USSR joins UNESCO
  • Apr 24 1st American, civilian pilot, P.R. Holden, wounded in Indochina
  • Apr 24 Australia & USSR break diplomatic relations

First Solar Battery

Apr 25 Bell labs announces the 1st solar battery made from silicon. It has about 6% efficiency.

Magazine advert for Bell Labs' new invention, the solar battery
  • Apr 25 British raid Nairobi, Kenya (25,000 Mau Mau suspects arrested)
  • Apr 25 US performs atmospheric nuclear test above Bikini Island
  • Apr 26 Far Eastern Affairs conference opens in Geneva

Polio

Apr 26 Mass trials of Jonas Salk's anti-polio vaccine begin; the first shot is delivered in Fairfax County, Virginia; more than 443,000 children receive shots over three months

Children with polio in a US hospital, inside an iron lung. In about 0.5% of cases, patients suffered from paralysis, sometimes resulting in the inability to breathe. More often, limbs would be paralyzed.
  • Apr 26 USSR Supreme Soviet transfer the Crimean oblast from Russian SFSR to Ukrainian SSR

Birthdays in History

  • Apr 5 Michael W Butler, computer programmer (created TODAY program)
  • Apr 8 G.V. Loganathan, American professor (d. 2007)
  • Apr 9 Iain Duncan Smith, British politician, Leader of the Conservative Party (2001-03), born in Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Apr 13 Barbara Roche, British Labour Party politician
  • Apr 14 Bruce Sterling, American sci-fi author (Involution Ocean, Schismatrix)
  • Apr 14 Shari Redstone, American media executive (ViacomCBS), born in Washington D.C.
  • Apr 24 Mumia Abu-Jamal, American journalist and political activist sentenced to death and then to life in prison, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Apr 29 Bill Paxon, American politician (Rep-R-New York 1989-99), born in Arkon, New York

Deaths in History

  • Apr 10 Auguste Lumière, French photograph and movie pioneer, dies at 81
  • Apr 10 Ludwig Curtius, German archaeologist (Die antike Kunst), dies at 79
  • Apr 13 Angus Lewis Macdonald, Canadian politician, dies at 63
  • Apr 17 Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, Romanian communist activist and sociologist, dies at 53
  • Apr 25 Joseph Hergesheimer, novelist (Java Head), dies
  • Apr 28 Léon Jouhaux, French socialist & co-founder UN's ILO (Nobel 1951), dies at 74
  • Apr 29 Ernst Heldring, Dutch ship owner and financier, dies at 82


Search the largest, most accurate site for today in history.