The day nothing happened

Today's papers all carry the story about the scientist who fed more than three million pieces of information into a computer and came up with the startling conclusion that 11 April 1954 was the most boring day in history. Nothing happened. Well, almost nothing...apart from a general election in Belgium and the passing of ex-journeyman footballer Jack Shufflebotham, and the birth of a Turk who became an analogue and microwave electronics expert, according to the papers.

If a student or a reporter came back to me and said they had no news because "nothing happened", I'd have their guts for garters. No news is not good news when you're trying to fill a newspaper.

So determined to see what I could find happened on 11 April 1954, I did some digging. Hmmm. it seems not a lot did happen. One thing that did but which today's papers missed was the death of Kirk Douglas's (already a well-known film star in 1954) father, Harry Demsky.

But 11 April 1954 was not the only day there was no news. The Daily Mail recalls another day during the 20th century when nothing happened. It reports today: "According to BBC Radio, April 18, 1930, was the dullest day of the 20th century after an announcer informed the nation at the 6.30pm bulletin: ‘There is no news.’"

It was also the day the Kenya authorities announced that negotiations with Mau Mau terrorists for a mass surrender had broken down and had been abandoned.

But apart from that, little does appear to have happened. Maybe a trip to the British Newspaper Library in Colindale, London would throw up some news stories of the day.

Also on 11 April 1954, Bill Haley and the Comets were travelling by ferry from Philadelphia to New York. The ferry got stuck on a sandbar en route and Haley and his band nearly didn't make it to Pythian Temple studios, 135 West 70th Street, New York City where the next day - 12 april - they recorded Rock Around the Clock.

Rock'n'roll was born and news started rolling again.