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

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Apr 13 Robert Oppenheimer accused of being a communist

Physicist and Father of the Atomic Bomb Robert Oppenheimer
Physicist and Father of the Atomic Bomb
Robert Oppenheimer
  • Apr 14 Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov asks for politics asylum in Canberra
  • Apr 18 Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power & becomes Prime Minister of Egypt

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Apr 21 Georgi Malenkov becomes premier of USSR

Soviet Leader 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

Historic InventionFirst Solar Battery

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

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Magazine advert for Bell Labs' new invention, the solar battery
Magazine advert for Bell Labs' new invention, the solar battery
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  • 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

Historic DiscoveryPolio

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

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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.
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.
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  • 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 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, (Rep-R-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