Kilauea Iki crater on Hawaii's Big Island erupts, sending lava fountains soaring nearly 1,900 feet into the sky, among the highest ever recorded.

President Dwight Eisenhower signed the proclamation admitting Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state, completing the modern American union.

Not the famous 1940 collapse, but a related Pacific Northwest bridge disaster raised fresh fears about wind-sensitive suspension designs.

Panamanian students attempted to plant their national flag in the Canal Zone, sparking violent clashes that foreshadowed decades of sovereignty conflict over the canal.

Meteorological records from this date fed into early satellite-era efforts to track Pacific typhoons, part of a shift toward space-based storm observation.

The Soviet probe Luna 3 began transmitting the first-ever photographs of the Moon's far side, a hemisphere never before seen by human eyes.

Frank Lloyd Wright's spiraling Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened to the public in New York City, six months after the architect's death.