A tugboat towing a barge collided with a rail bridge in Mobile, Alabama, U.S., deforming the tracks and causing the derailment of a passenger train eight minutes later, which killed 47 people and injured an additional 103.
An American Vela satellite detected an unidentified flash of light near the Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
François Duvalier (pictured), nicknamed Papa Doc, was elected President of Haiti as a populist before consolidating power and ruling as a dictator for the rest of his life.