The government of the Rhodesia commissions an airport at Salisbury; it would later become Harare International Airport when the name of the capital city changed. The airport would be officially opened in February 1957.[1]
Hurricane Anna forms in the Gulf of Mexico. In the course of a week, it causes damage in the US states of Florida and Alabama, but there are no associated fatalities.[6]
Vice President Richard Nixon visits South Vietnam, where he addresses the Vietnamese constituent assembly, saying that "the march of Communism has been halted".[10]
The British steamship Yewcroft is stranded in dense fog on the rocks of Trevean Cove, Cornwall, UK, while carrying cement from Kent to Bristol.[16]
French cargo ship Dione collides with Liberian-registered SS Michael off the Goodwin Sands, Kent, UK.[17]
British cross-channel ferry Lord Warden collides with a French ship, SS Tamba off Cap Gris Nez, Pas de Calais, France.
French fishing boat collides with the British ship Kenuta off the Eddystone Lighthouse in the English Channel and sinks. The crew members are rescued by Kenuta.
Died:Giovanni Papini, 75, Italian journalist, essayist, literary critic, poet, and novelist[18]
1956 Amorgos earthquake: An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 strikes the easternmost island of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, also affecting neighbouring Santorini.[19] The earthquake and resultant tsunami kill 53 people.
Australia's prime minister, Robert Menzies, speaking in London, states that the Commonwealth Prime Ministers are unanimously in favour of Japan being admitted to the United Nations.[22]
After ten years as partners, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together at the Copacabana nightclub in New York, United States.[36]
Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sinks during an Atlantic crossing from Genoa after colliding with the Swedish icebreaker SS Stockholm in heavy fog 72 kilometers (45 mi) south of Nantucket island, United States, killing 46 people, including five crew.[37]
The British ketchMoyana flounders in strong gales off The Lizard, Cornwall, UK. All crew members are rescued by SS Clan Maclean. In the same storm, the cargo ship Teeswood capsizes off Dungeness, Kent, losing one of her sixteen crew, and sinks.[43]
England cricketer Jim Laker sets a record by taking 19 wickets in a first class match (the previous best was 17) in the fourth Test against Australia at Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester, UK.[49]
^Pham, David Lan (2000). Two Hamlets in Nam Bo: Memoirs of Life in Vietnam Through Japanese Occupation, the French and American Wars, and Communist Rule, 1940-1986. McFarland. p. 85. ISBN978-0-7864-0646-3.
^Warwick, Neil; Kutner, Jon; Brown, Tony (2004). The Complete Book of the British Charts: Singles and Albums (3rd ed.). London: Omnibus Press. ISBN1-84449-058-0.
^Lewis, Jerry: Dean & Me: A Love Story, page 277. Pan Books, 2007
^Samuel Halpern, An Objective Forensic Analysis of the Collision Between Stockholm and Andrea Doria