October 30
is the 303rd day of the year (304th in
leap years) in the
Gregorian Calendar, with 62 days remaining.
*
1137 -
Battle of Rignano between
Ranulf of Apulia and
Roger II of Sicily.
*
1270 - The
Eighth Crusade and siege of
Tunis end by an agreement between
Charles I of Sicily (brother to King
Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the
sultan of Tunis.
*
1340 -
Battle of Rio Salado*
1470 -
Henry VI of England returns to the
English throne after
Earl of Warwick defeats
Yorkists in battle.
*
1831 - In
Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave
Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest
slave revolt in
United States history.
*
1864 -
Second war of Schleswig ends: Duke
Frederick and the
Danish Crown recognize
Prussia's and
Austria's annexation of
Schleswig,
Holstein and
Lauenburg.
* 1864 -
Helena, Montana is founded after four
prospectors discover
gold at "Last Chance Gulch."
*
1894 - Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing
pandoro industrially.
*
1905 - Tsar
Nicholas II of Russia grants
Russia's first
constitution, creating a legislative assembly.
*
1918 - The
Ottoman Empire signs an
armistice with the
Allies, ending the
First World War in the
Middle East*
1920 - The
Communist Party of Australia founded in
Sydney.
*
1925 -
John Logie Baird creates Britain's first
television transmitter.
*
1929 - The
Stuttgart Cable Car is constructed in
Stuttgart,
Germany.
*
1938 -
Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of
H. G. Wells's
The War of the Worlds, causing a nationwide panic.
*
1941 -
World War II:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in
Lend-Lease aid to the
Soviet Union.
*
1944 -
Anne Frank is deported from
Auschwitz to the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
*
1947 -
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) is founded.
*
1950 - Pope
Pius XII witnesses the "
Miracle of the Sun" while at the
Vatican"
[Joseph Pelletier "The Sun Danced at Fatima", Doubleday, New York (1983),pp150,151] *
1953 -
Cold War: US President
Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the
top secret document
National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the
United States' arsenal of
nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the
communist threat.
*
1960 -
Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the
United Kingdom at the
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
*
1961 -
Nuclear testing: The
Soviet Union detonates the
hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over
Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest nuclear device ever detonated.
Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield so as to avoid breaking all the windows in
Moscow.
* 1961 - Due to "violations of
Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that
Josef Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near
the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.
*
1965 -
Vietnam War: Just miles from
Da Nang,
United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of
Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old
Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.
*
1966 - The
Zodiac Killer kills his first victim, 18-year old Cheri Jo Bates, in
Riverside,
California.
*
1968 - The film
The Lion in Winter, starring
Katharine Hepburn, debuts.
*
1970 - In
Vietnam, the worst
monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large
floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the
Vietnam War.
*
1972 - US President
Richard Nixon approves legislation to increase
Social Security spending by US$5.3 billion.
*
1974 - "
The Rumble in the Jungle":
Muhammad Ali knocks out
George Foreman in
Kinshasa,
Zaire to regain the World Heavyweight
Boxing championship.
*
1975 -
Prince Juan Carlos becomes
Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen.
Francisco Franco.
*
1980 -
El Salvador and
Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's
Football War before the
International Court of Justice.
*
1983 - The first democratic elections in
Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.
*
1985 -
Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission
STS-61-A, its final successful mission.
*
1987 - In
Japan,
NEC releases the first 16-bit
home entertainment system, the
PC-Engine.
*
1988 -
Philip Morris buys
Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.
*
1991 - The
Madrid Conference for Middle East peace talks opens.
*
1995 -
Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a
referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from
Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%).
*
1997 -
British au pair
Louise Woodward is found guilty of the
baby-shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.
*
1999 -
Miss Saigon closes in London after
4264 performances.
*
2001 -
George W. Bush throws out the first pitch at Game 3 of the
World Series at Yankee Stadium, in what was intended to be a defiant gesture, coming just weeks after the
Sept. 11 attacks.
* 2001 -
Michael Jordan returns to the
National Basketball Association with the
Washington Wizards after 3 1/2 years (the Wizards lose 93-91 to the
New York Knicks).
*
2002 -
Jam Master Jay of
Run-DMC was shot and killed in a
Merrick Boulevard recording studio.
* 2002 - British
Digital terrestrial television (DTT) Service
Freeview starts transmitting throughout parts of the
United Kingdom*
2004 - A 163-metre high
radio mast in
Peterborough,
Cambridgeshire, UK collapses in a fire.
* 2004 - In
Punjab, India the expelled
BSP leader Satnam Singh Kainth launches
Bahujan Samaj Party (Kainth).
*
2005 - The rebuilt
Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the
firebombing of Dresden during World War II) was reconsecrated, after 13 years of rebuilding.
*
1218 -
Emperor Chukyo of Japan (d.
1234)
*
1513 -
Jacques Amyot, French writer (d.
1593)
*
1624 -
Paul Pellisson, French writer (d.
1693)
*
1735 -
John Adams, American revolutionary leader and
President of the United States (d.
1826)
*
1751 -
Richard Sheridan, Irish playwright (d.
1816)
*
1762 -
André Chénier, French writer (d.
1794)
*
1821 -
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian writer (d.
1881)
*
1839 -
Alfred Sisley, French artist (d.
1899)
*
1844 -
Harvey W. Wiley, American chemist (d.
1930)
*
1847 -
Galileo Ferraris, Italian physicist (d.
1897)
*
1857 -
Georges Gilles de la Tourette, French neurologist (d.
1904)
*
1861 -
Antoine Bourdelle, French sculptor (d.
1929)
*
1871 -
Paul Valery, French poet (d.
1945)
* 1871 -
Buck Freeman, baseball player (d.
1949)
*
1882 -
William Halsey, Jr, American admiral (d.
1959)
* 1882 -
Günther von Kluge, German field marshal (d.
1944)
*
1885 -
Ezra Pound, American poet (d.
1972)
*
1886 -
Zoe Akins, American playwright (d.
1958)
*
1893 -
Charles Atlas, Italian-born bodybuilder (d.
1972)
* 1893 -
Roland Freisler, German Nazi politician (d.
1945)
*
1895 -
Gerhard Domagk, German bacteriologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (declined) (d.
1964)
* 1895 -
Dickinson W. Richards, American physician, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d.
1973)
*
1896 -
Ruth Gordon, American actress (d.
1985)
*
1898 -
Bill Terry, baseball player (d.
1989)
*
1900 -
Ragnar Granit Finnish neuroscientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d.
1991)
*
1906 -
Giuseppe Farina, Italian race car driver (d.
1966)
*
1909 -
Homi J. Bhabha, Indian physicist (d.
1966)
*
1911 -
Ruth Hussey, American actress (d.
2005)
*
1914 -
Richard E Holz, American composer
*
1915 -
Fred Friendly, American journalist and network executive (d.
1998)
*
1916 -
Leon Day, baseball player (d.
1995)
*
1917 -
Nikolai Vasilievich Ogarkov, Soviet field marshal (d.
1994)
* 1917 -
Maurice Trintignant, French race car driver (d.
2005)
*
1928 -
Daniel Nathans, American microbiologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d.
1999)
*
1930 -
Nestor Almendros, Spanish cinematographer (d.
1992)
* 1930 -
Clifford Brown, noted and highly influential American jazz trumpeter (d.
1956)
*
1932 -
Louis Malle, French film director (d.
1995)
*
1934 -
Frans Brüggen, Dutch flutist, recorder player, and conductor
*
1935 -
Agota Kristof, Hungarian writer
*
1936 -
Polina Astakhova, Ukrainian gymnast (d.
2005)
*
1937 -
Claude Lelouch, French film director
*
1939 -
Leland H. Hartwell, American scientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine* 1939 -
Grace Slick, American singer (
Jefferson Airplane)
*
1940 -
Ed Lauter, American actor
*
1941 -
Theodor W. Hänsch, German physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate
* 1941 -
Otis Williams, American singer
*
1945 -
Henry Winkler, American actor
*
1951 -
Harry Hamlin, American actor
*
1956 -
Juliet Stevenson, English actress
*
1958 -
Joe Delaney, American football player (d.
1983)
* 1958 -
Stefan Dennis, Australian actor
*
1960 -
Diego Armando Maradona, Argentine footballer
*
1961 -
Scott Garrelts, Baseball player
*
1962 -
Courtney Walsh, West Indian cricketer
*
1963 -
Kristina Wagner, American actress
*
1965 -
Gavin Rossdale, English musician
*
1966 -
Scott Innes, American voice actor
*
1970 -
Maja Tatic, Bosnia singer
*
1973 -
Adam "Edge" Copeland, Canadian professional wrestler
* 1973 -
Silvia Corzo, Colombian newsreader
*
1976 -
Stern John, Trinidadian footballer
*
1978 -
Martin Dossett, American football player
*
1979 -
Yukie Nakama, Japanese actress
*
1983 -
Iain Hume, Canadian footballer
*
1984 -
Eva Pigford, American model and actress
*
1459 -
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Italian humanist (b.
1380)
*
1522 -
Jean Mouton, French composer
*
1553 -
Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck, German statesman and reformer (b.
1489)
*
1602 -
Jean-Jacques Boissard, French poet (b.
1528)
*
1611 - King
Charles IX of Sweden (b.
1550)
*
1626 -
Willebrord Snell, Dutch astronomer and mathematician (b.
1580)
*
1632 -
Henri II de Montmorency, French naval officer and Governor of Languedoc (b.
1595)
*
1654 -
Emperor Go-Komyo of Japan (b.
1633)
*
1680 -
Antoinette Bourignon, Flemish mystic (b.
1616)
*
1685 -
Michel le Tellier, French statesman (b.
1603)
*
1816 -
Frederick I of Württemberg (b.
1754)
*
1842 -
Allan Cunningham, Scottish poet and author (b.
1784)
*
1853 -
Pietro Raimondi, Italian composer (b.
1786)
*
1883 -
Robert Volkmann, German composer (b.
1815)
*
1893 -
John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, third
Prime Minister of Canada (b.
1821)
*
1899 -
William Henry Webb, American industrialist and philanthropist (b.
1816)
*
1910 -
Henry Dunant, Swiss founder of the Red Cross, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (b.
1828)
*
1912 -
James S. Sherman,
Vice President of the United States (b.
1855)
*
1915 -
Charles Tupper, sixth
Prime Minister of Canada (b.
1821)
*
1957 -
Fred Beebe, Baseball player (b.
1880)
*
1968 -
Rose Wilder Lane, American journalist and author (b.
1886)
* 1968 -
Ramón Novarro, Mexican actor (b.
1899)
*
1969 -
Pops Foster, American musician (b.
1892)
*
1975 -
Gustav Ludwig Hertz, German physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1887)
*
1978 -
Edgar Bergen, American ventriloquist (b.
1903)
*
1979 -
Barnes Wallis, British aeronautical engineer (b.
1887)
* 1979 -
Donna Rachele Mussolini, Italian, wife of
Benito Mussolini (b.
1890)
*
2000 -
Steve Allen, American comedian, author, and composer (b.
1921)
*
2002 -
Jam Master Jay, American rapper and musician (
Run DMC) (murdered) (b.
1965)
*
2004 -
Peggy Ryan, American actress (b.
1924)
*
2005 -
Al Lopez, baseball player and manager (b.
1908)
* 2005 -
Shamsher Singh Sheri, Indian revolutionary leader (b.
1942)
*
Calendar of Saints -
October 30th is the
feast day of the following
Roman Catholic Saints:
**
Bl. Angelus of Acri**
St. Alfonso Rodríguez**
St. Arilda**
St. Artemas**
St. Dorothy of Montau**
St. Herbert **
Bl. John Slade**
St. Macarius**
St. Marcel**
St. Maximus**
St. Saturninus **
St. Serapion**
St. Talacrian**
St. Theonestus**
St. Zenobius & Zenobia* Also see
October 30 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)*
USA -
Mischief Night in some areas (known as
Devil's Night in
Detroit)
*
BBC: On This DayOctober 29 -
October 31 -
September 30 -
November 30 - more
historical anniversaries
