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The "Morotai Mutiny" was an incident in April 1945 involving members of the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai, in the Dutch East Indies. Eight senior pilots, including Australia's leading flying ace, Group Captain Clive Caldwell, tendered their resignations to protest what they perceived as the relegation of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter squadrons to strategically unimportant ground attack missions. A government investigation vindicated the "mutineers", and three high-ranking officers at First Tactical Air Force Headquarters including the commander, Air Commodore Harry Cobby, were relieved of their posts. George Odgers summed up the cause of the incident in the official history of the RAAF in World War II as "the conviction of a group of young leaders that they were engaging in operations that were not militarily justifiable—a conviction widely shared also by many Australian soldiers and political leaders." Odgers concluded that the ensuing inquiry "made it clear that almost everyone concerned acted from the highest motives, and was convinced that, in the crisis, he acted wisely". (more...)

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April 20: Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel, 2010); Ridván begins at sunset (Bahá'í Faith); 4/20 (cannabis culture)

• 1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament of the Commonwealth of England by force, eventually replacing it with the Barebone's Parliament.
• 1884 – Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Humanum Genus, denouncing Freemasonry as well as a number of beliefs and practices purportedly associated with it such as popular sovereignty and the separation of church and state.
• 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the Shadow Cabinet.
• 1999 – Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold embarked on a massacre, killing 13 people and wounding over 20 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, US.
• 2008 – Fernando Lugo (pictured) became the first non-Colorado Party candidate to be elected President of Paraguay in 61 years.

More anniversaries: April 19 – April 20 – April 21