April: Bill Haley & His Comets record "Rock Around The Clock" thus starting the Rock and Roll craze.

April 1 - The U.S. Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorize the founding of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado - South Point School (India) was founded that would grow to the largest school in the world by 1992.

April 3: Vladimir Petrov defects from the Soviet Union and asks for political asylum in Australia.

April 4: The legendary symphony conductor Arturo Toscanini experiences a lapse of memory during a concert. At this concert's end, his retirement is announced, and Toscanini never conducts in public again.

April 7: Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.

April 8: A Royal Canadian Air Force Canadair Harvard collides with a Trans-Canada Air Lines Canadair North Star over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, killing 37 people.

April 11: This day was denoted as the most boring day in the 20th century by True Knowledge, an answer engine developed by William Tunstall-Pedoe.

April 14: Aneurin Bevan resigns from the British Labour Party's "shadow cabinet". - A Soviet spy ring in Australia is unveiled.

April 16: Vice President Richard Nixon announces that the United States may be "putting our own boys in Indochina regardless of Allied support."

April 22: Senator Joseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army for being "soft" on Communism.

April 26: International conference on Korea and Indo-China opens in Geneva.

April 28: U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accuses Communist China of sending combat troops to Indo-China to train the Viet Minh guerrillas. (source: Wikipedia)