April 1954 in History

Events in History

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

34th US President & WWII General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Apr 12 Belgian Van Houtte government resigns
Apr 12 Joe Turner releases "Shake, Rattle & Roll"

Oppenheimer Security Hearing

Apr 13 Robert Oppenheimer accused of being a communist

Physicist and Father of the Atomic Bomb Robert Oppenheimer

Apr 14 Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov asks for politics asylum in Canberra

Event of Interest

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

Event of Interest

Apr 21 Georgi Malenkov becomes premier of USSR

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

Anti-Polio Vaccine Trial Begins

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 2 Donald Petrie, American film director (Mystic Pizza; Miss Congeniality), born in New York City
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 24 Mumia Abu-Jamal, American journalist and political activist sentenced to death and then to life in prison, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Frank Bainimarama (69 years old)

Apr 27 Fijian naval officer and Prime Minister of Fiji (2007-22), born in Kiuva, Fiji

Apr 29 Bill Paxon, American politician (Rep-R-New York 1989-99), born in Arkon, New York

Deaths in History

Apr 4 Frederick Lonsdale, British playwright (Balkan Princess), dies at 73
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 Peace Prize 1951), dies at 74
Apr 29 Ernst Heldring, Dutch ship owner and financier, dies at 82