Following the country's independence from France, Spain discontinued the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, ceding its territory to the newly established kingdom.
A Nat King Cole concert in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, was interrupted by three Ku Klux Klan members, who pushed Cole from his piano stool; all were later tried and convicted, but Cole would never again perform in his home state.
The 1956 World Table Tennis Championships came to an end in Tokyo, Japan. The host country finished with four of the seven available gold medals, Romania with two, and the United States with one.
Ampex demonstrated the VR-1000, the first of its line of 2 inch Quadruplex videotape recorders, at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago, United States. Later the same year, the first television network programme to use the new Ampex Quadruplex recording system would be shown on CBS.
Born:Barbara Bonney, US soprano; in Montclair, New Jersey
The Board of Inquiry into the 1956 Hawker Hunter multiple aircraft accident reported that the primary cause of the accident was a sudden deterioration in the weather, but that it had been an error of judgement to divert the aircraft on the assumption that they could perform a visual landing.
The first-ever ship to use the modern cargo container, named the Ideal X, set sail from New Jersey to Texas, marking the start of a new era of worldwide economics.
France completed its military withdrawal from Vietnam with the last of the French Expeditionary Force leaving the country.
The Canadian Pacific Railway discontinued its Imperial Limitedpassenger service, its premier passenger train between Montreal and Vancouver, which had been running since 1899, because of the loss of its contract with Royal Mail.