The following events occurred inAugust 1955:

• Norway'sMinistry of Pay and Prices was established, headed byGunnar Bråthen.
• The Lockheed Article 001, a prototype of theLockheed U-2reconnaissance aircraft, made its maiden flight in what was intended to be only a high-speed taxi test atGroom Lake in Nevada, United States.^[1]

• Died:Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, 86, German military leader and last heir apparent to the Bavarian throne^[2]

• The English-language première ofSamuel Beckett's playWaiting for Godot, directed byPeter Hall, took place at theArts Theatre,London.^[3]

• The1955 Mitropa Cup football competition was won byVörös Lobogó, withÚDA Praha as runners-up after the second leg of the final.
• While her act was being filmed forNBC variety seriesThe Jimmy Durante Show,Carmen Miranda complained of feeling ill and out of breath but finished her performance.^[4][5]

• Died:Carmen Miranda, 46, Portuguese Brazilian singer and actress (pre-eclampsia)^[6]

• TheFrench Southern and Antarctic Territories were created, as anoverseas territory of France.

• The Frenchdépartement ofBône was created out of the eastern extremity of the former département of Constantine inAlgeria.
• Born:Wayne Knight, American actor, inNew York City

• ComposerLuigi Nono married Nuria, the daughter of another composer,Arnold Schoenberg, inVenice.^[7]
• AtEdwards Air Force Base inCalifornia, an explosion occurred inside the rocket engine of theX-1A research aircraft while it was being carried under itsB-29 mother ship prior to a planned flight bytest pilotJoseph A. Walker. Walker climbed 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, was forced to drop the rocket plane, which exploded in the desert.^[8]
• Died:Grace Hartman, 48, American actress

• TheCanadian National Railway opened its part of Walkley Yard inOttawa,Canada.
• Born:Maud Olofsson, Swedish politician, in Arnäsvall

• TheDivision of Stirling was created in aWestern Australia electoral redistribution.^[9]

• As a formation of nineUnited States Air ForceFairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars flew over Edelweiler, nearStuttgart,West Germany, on a training mission carrying troops, one of them, a C-119G, experienced engine trouble, lost altitude momentarily, pulled upward abruptly, andcollided with another C-119G. Both aircraft crashed, killing all 19 people aboard one and all 47 aboard the other. The combined death toll of 66 made it the worst aviation accident in German history at the time and the deadliest ever involving any variant of the C-119. It would tie with theMarch 22crash of aUnited States NavyR6D-1 Liftmaster inHawaii and theOctober 6 crash ofUnited Airlines Flight 409 inWyoming as the deadliest air accident of 1955.^[10][11]
• Burhanuddin Harahap became Prime Minister ofIndonesia.

• Hurricane Connie struck North Carolina as a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
• Died:
  • Thomas Mann, 80, German novelist, Nobel Prize laureate^[12][13]
  • James B. Sumner, 67, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate^[14]

• Died:Florence Easton, 72, English-born operatic soprano

• The USschoonerLevin J. Marvel capsized and sank inChesapeake Bay with the loss of 14 of the 16 people on board. It was lost during high waves inHurricane Connie.^[15][16]

• Rear AdmiralRoyce de Mel became the first nativeCommander of the Royal Ceylon Navy.^[17][18] He would later be implicated in the1962 Ceylonese coup d'état attempt.

• Edward Makula set 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.^[19]

• Died:Fernand Léger, 74, French painter and sculptor

• TheFirst Sudanese Civil War began.
• First meeting of theOrganization of Central American States (Organización de Estados Centroamericanos, ODECA), inAntigua Guatemala.

• Hurricane Diane hit the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people and causing over $1.0 billion in damage.

• Dorothy Hodgkin and her colleagues published the final structure ofvitamin B₁₂.^[20]
• InAlgeria, theBattle of Philippeville, also known as thePhilippeville massacre or theAugust Offensive, began when several thousand civilians launched a general assault on the city ofPhilippeville, to attack Europeans andmoderate Muslim personalities.^[21] Over a hundred people, mainly European civilians, were killed in this and the accompanying attacks.^[22]
• Flying a U.S. Air ForceNorth American F-100C Super Sabre, Horace A. Haines set aworld speed record of 822.135 mph (1,323.889 km/h).^[23]

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• TheKelly-Hopkinsville encounter, a claimed alien and UFO encounter inChristian County, Kentucky.

• Eleven schoolchildren were killed when their school bus was hit by a freight train inSpring City, Tennessee,United States after the driver disregarded acrossing signal; a further 39 were injured.^[24]

• TheWestland Widgeon helicopter made its maiden flight.
• Died:Rudolf Minger, 73, Swiss politician

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• In China, theSufan movement issued its "Directive on the thoroughpurge and cleansing of hidden counter-revolutionaries".^[25]
• While on a voyage fromHampton Roads, Virginia, United States, to Copenhagen, Denmark, the British cargo shipArgobeam was caught in a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. It caught fire and was abandoned by the crew. A few days later it was taken in toStornoway,Isle of Lewis, and would eventually be repaired and returned to service asParkgate.^[26]

• Satyajit Ray's filmPather Panchali was released in Calcutta, India, receiving a poor initial response but quickly attracting audiences to become a classic of Indian cinema.^[27]

• The first edition of theGuinness Book of Records was published, in London, compiled byNorris andRoss McWhirter.^[28]
• Born:Sergey Khlebnikov, Soviet speed skater (d. 1999)

• The Challenge Round of the1955 Davis Cup tennis competition was won byAustralia at theWest Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills, New York, USA.^[29]
• A US-registeredtugboat, theHarold J, sank in theBering Sea nearLopp Lagoon on theAlaskan coast in a storm, with the loss of three crew members.^[30]
• Died:Emmett Till, 14, African-American teenager, was beaten and shot to death in Mississippi for allegedly speaking to a white woman.^[31]

• A BritishRoyal Air ForceEnglish Electric Canberra set a new world altitude record of 65,876 ft (20,079 m).^[32]
• The1955 CCCF Championship soccer competition ended in victory forCosta Rica.^[33]

• U.S. Patrolmen William Hudec and Warren Stainbrook of theCleveland Division of Police were killed when a train struck the police ambulance they were driving.^[34][35] Hudec was the father of actress Majel Leigh Hudec, who would later be better known asMajel Barrett and play multiple roles in theStar Trek franchise.

• TheHudson and Manhattan Railroad began experiments withair conditioning on itssubway cars, a technology that theNew York City Subway system had declared impractical before then.^[36] This experiment resulted in the first successful production application of air conditioning in a rapid transit car, 50 cars (20 owned by H&M, 30 by H&M parentPRR) built bySt. Louis Car Company in 1958.
• Lockheed Aircraft Corporation engineeringtest pilot Stanley Beltz was killed in a crash nearLancaster, California, USA, while piloting anF-94B Starfire modified to test the nose section of theBOMARC missile.^[37]
• Emmett Till's decomposed corpse was pulled fromMississippi'sTallahatchie River. Moses Wright identified the body from a ring with the initials L.T.^[38]

• August 1955
• August by year
• Months in the 1950s

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