TheLockheed Article 001, a prototype of the Lockheed U-2reconnaissance aircraft, makes its maiden flight in what is intended to be only a high-speed taxi test at Groom Lake in Nevada, United States.[1]
While her act is being filmed for NBC variety series The Jimmy Durante Show, Carmen Miranda complains of feeling ill and out of breath, but finishes her performance.[4][5]
At Edwards Air Force Base in California, an explosion occurs inside the rocket engine of the X-1A research aircraft while it is being carried under its B-29 mother ship prior to a planned flight by test pilotJoseph A. Walker. Walker climbs out of the X-1A back into the B-29, but pilot Stan Butchart, unable to risk landing the B-29 with the X-1A still attached to its underside, is forced to drop the rocket plane, which explodes in the desert.[8]
As a formation of nine United States Air ForceFairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars flies over Edelweiler, near Stuttgart, West Germany, on a training mission carrying troops, one of them, a C-119G, experiences engine trouble, loses altitude momentarily, pulls upward abruptly, and collides with another C-119G. Both aircraft crash, killing all 19 people aboard one and all 47 aboard the other. The combined death toll of 66 makes it the worst aviation accident in German history at the time and the deadliest ever involving any variant of the C-119. It will tie with the March 22crash of a United States NavyR6D-1 Liftmaster in Hawaii and the October 6 crash of United Airlines Flight 409 in Wyoming as the deadliest air accident of 1955.[10][11]
Edward Makula sets a new world record glider speed of 67.304 kilometres per hour (41.821 mph) over a triangular course of 200 kilometres (120 mi), the first of seven world records Makula would hold in the course of his career.[17]
In Algeria, the Battle of Philippeville, also known as the Philippeville massacre or the August Offensive, begins when several thousand civilians launched a general assault on the city of Philippeville, to attack Europeans and moderate Muslim personalities[19] Over a hundred people, mainly European civilians, are killed in this and the accompanying attacks.[20]
In China, the Sufan movement issues its "Directive on the thorough purge and cleansing of hidden counter-revolutionaries".[23]
While on a voyage from Hampton Roads, Virginia, United States, to Copenhagen, Denmark, the British cargo ship Argobeam is caught in a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. It catches fire and is abandoned by the crew. A few days later it is taken in to Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, and is eventually repaired and returned to service as Parkgate.[24]
Satyajit Ray's film Pather Panchali is released in Calcutta, India, receiving a poor initial response but quickly attracting audiences to become a classic of Indian cinema.[25]
U.S. Patrolmen William Hudec and Warren Stainbrook of the Cleveland Division of Police are killed when a train strikes the police ambulance they are driving.[32][33] Hudec is the father of actress Majel Leigh Hudec, who will later be better known as Majel Barrett and play multiple roles in the Star Trek franchise.
^Jonathan Boff (2018). Haig's Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany's War on the Western Front. Oxford University Press. p. 253. ISBN9780199670468.
^Knowlson, James (1996). Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury. p. 415.
^Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot; Pickworth, Jenny; Robertson, John H.; Trueblood, Kenneth N.; Prosen, Richard J.; White, John G. (1955). "Structure of Vitamin B12: The Crystal Structure of the Hexacarboxylic Acid derived from B12 and the Molecular Structure of the Vitamin". Nature. 176 (4477): 325–8. Bibcode:1955Natur.176..325H. doi:10.1038/176325a0. PMID13253565. S2CID4220926.
^Adam Shatz, “The Torture of Algiers,” NY Review of Books, volume 49, number 18, 21 November 2002.
^Vétillard, Roger (2013). 20 August 1955 dans le Nord-Constantinois. Un tournant dans la guerre d'Algérie? (in French). Riveneuve éditions. p. 270.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 352.
^Mitchell, WH; Sawyer, LA (1990). The Empire Ships (Second ed.). London, New York, Hamburg, Hong Kong: Lloyd's of London Press Ltd. p. 29. ISBN1-85044-275-4.