Using a World War II-era aviation radar system, Illinois State Water Survey electrical engineer Donald Staggs makes the first radar-based detection of a nearby tornado, part of a tornado outbreak striking in and near Champaign, Illinois. The “hook echo” is the distinctive radar signature of a rapidly evolving small-scale cyclone developing from the larger radar signature of its parent thunderstorm. Continued observations confirm that this is the “radar shape” of a forming tornado, an invaluable piece of information for forecasters on the forefront of severe weather prediction.
The 77th episode of the science fiction anthology series Tales Of Tomorrow airs on ABC. Much of the second season is missing, including this episode, which was adapted from a Ray Bradbury story.
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The 25th episode of The Adventures Of Superman airs in syndication, starring George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, and Jack Larson. This two-parter was created by editing the 1951 film Superman And The Mole-Men.
The Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb, code named RDS-6s, in its first thermonuclear weapons demonstration. The bomb is estimated to have a yield of 400 kilotons, thanks to a layered design devised by nuclear physicist (and later political exile) Andrei Sakharov, though Sakharov’s design is incapable of being scaled up, ending its use in later Soviet nuclear weapon designs.
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Paramount Pictures releases the George Pal-produced movie adaptation of H.G. Wells’