UK Opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell, says of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egypt: "It is all very familiar. It is exactly the same that we encountered from Mussolini and Hitler in those years before the war."[2]
US baseball player Ted Williams spits at a mocking fan during a game. He would be fined $5,000 for his conduct.[9]
Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury, France's Defence Minister, obtains support from Israel for a joint attack on Suez.[10]
An explosion occurs in Cali, Colombia, caused by the explosion of seven ammunition trucks loaded with 1053 boxes of dynamite, parked in Cali overnight. The country's president, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, blames the opposition. Death estimates range from 1,300 to 10,000, in a city that at the time had merely 120,000 inhabitants.[11]
Fire breaks out at the Bois du Cazier mine in Marcinelle, Belgium. 262 miners are killed, workers of twelve different nationalities; more than half are Italian.[12]
Russian composer Igor Stravinsky obtains an audience with Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, who, as Archbishop of Venice, gives permission for the performance of Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum in St Mark's Cathedral. The piece was dedicated by Stravinsky "To the City of Venice, in praise of its Patron Saint, the Blessed Mark, Apostle". He conducted the performance himself, a month later.[15]
Hurricane Betsy makes landfall in Puerto Rico, the first Atlantic hurricane to strike the island for 24 years. Extensive damage is caused in Aibonito, Comerío and Jayuya; the worst damage is in Yabucoa. Sixteen people are killed.[19]
Around 5,000 members of the banned Romanian Greek-Catholic Church protest outside Cluj-Napoca Piarists' Church to demonstrate that despite the regime's claims their church survives. Fr. Vasile Chindriș preaches a sermon criticizing the Communist leadership, and all priests involved in the protest are later arrested and imprisoned.
The All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship and All-Ireland Football Championship finals are postponed because of an outbreak of polio which has already affected 90 people in Cork.[20]
Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident: Air bases in eastern England, UK, belonging to Britain's RAF and the US Air Force, experience a number of suspected UFO sightings.[21]
Representatives of the major countries that use the Suez Canal meet in London to discuss the future ownership and operation of the canal. Egypt does not attend the talks, which last until 23 August.[27]
Ho Chi Minh and other officials make a public apology for problems with North Vietnam's land reform program. The estimated number of "landlords" killed since 1954 is between 3,000 and 50,000; 12,000 are released from prisons after the government's apology.[31]
The Metropolitan Police Murder Squad takes over the investigation of the activities of British doctor John Bodkin Adams, "probably the wealthiest GP in England".[32] Adams was later tried and acquitted, and would return to medical practice within five years.
A five-stage, solid-fuel rocket test vehicle, the world's first, is launched to a speed of Mach 15 by the NACALangley Aeronautical Laboratory's Pilotless Aircraft Research Division.[43]
The "Clinton Twelve" (Jo Ann Allen, Bobby Cain, Theresser Caswell, Minnie Ann Dickey, Gail Ann Epps, Ronald Hayden, William Latham, Alvah J. McSwain, Maurice Soles, Robert Thacker, Regina Turner and Alfred Williams) attend classes at Clinton High School, Clinton, Tennessee, becoming the first African-American students to desegregate a state-supported public school in the Southeast United States.[48]
In Egypt, British diplomat John-McGlashan, businessman James Swinburn, and a Maltese citizen, James Zarb, are detained by the authorities and accused of spying.[49]
Mansfield school desegregation incident: The mayor and police chief of Mansfield, Texas, join a crowd of about 300 white protesters in front of Mansfield High School, in an attempt was to prevent the enrollment of the three black students.[51]
^Födisch, Jörg Thomas; Völker, Bernhard; Behrndt, Michael (2008). Der große Preis von Deutschland. Alle Rennen seit 1926. Königswinter: HEEL Verlag. p. 75. ISBN9783868520439.
^Marx, Thomas G. (1976), "Technological Change and the Theory of the Firm: The American Locomotive Industry, 1920–1955", Business History Review (50.1): 5–18.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 615.
