TODAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 30

 

January 30

 

1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen.

1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom.

1607 – An estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in England are destroyed by massive flooding, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths.

1648 – Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück is signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain.

1649 – Charles I of England is executed in Whitehall, London.

1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed.

1703 – The Forty-seven rōnin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master, by killing Kira Yoshinaka.

1789 – Tây Sơn forces emerge victorious against Qing armies and liberate the capital Thăng Long.

1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened.

1820 – Edward Bransfield sights the Trinity Peninsula and claims the discovery of Antarctica.

1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, is opened.

1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself.

1847 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco, California.

1858 – The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.

1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.

1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in the Mayerling.

1902 – The first Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London.

1908 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month.

1911 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy 16 kilometres (10 mi) from Havana, Cuba.

1920 – Japanese carmaker Mazda is founded, initially as a cork-producing company.

1925 – The Government of Turkey expels Patriarch Constantine VI from Istanbul.

1930 – The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union orders the confiscation of lands belonging to the Kulaks in a campaign of Dekulakization, resulting in the executions and forced deportations of millions.

1933 – Adolf Hitler's rise to power: Hitler takes office as the Chancellor of Germany.

1939 – During a speech in the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler makes a prediction about the end of the Jewish race in Europe if another world war were to occur.

1942 – World War II: Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. Some 300 captured Allied troops are killed after the surrender. One-quarter of the remaining POWs remain alive at the end of the war.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cisterna, part of Operation Shingle, begins in central Italy.

1945 – World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 9,500 people.

1945 – World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: One hundred and twenty-six American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese-controlled Cabanatuan POW camp.

1948 – British South American Airways' Tudor IV Star Tiger disappears over the Bermuda Triangle.

1948 – Following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in his home compound, India's prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, broadcasts to the nation, saying "The light has gone out of our lives". The date of the assassination becomes observed as "Martyrs' Day" in India.

1956 – In the United States, Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery bus boycott.

1959 – The forces of the Sultanate of Muscat occupy the last strongholds of the Imamate of Oman, Saiq and Shuraijah, marking the end of Jebel Akhdar War in Oman.

1959 – MS Hans Hedtoft, specifically designed to operate in icebound seas, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard.

1960 – The African National Party is founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties.

1964 – In a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrows General Dương Văn Minh's military junta in South Vietnam.

1968 – Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.

1969 – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.

1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers open fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people; another person later dies of injuries sustained.

1972 – Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth of Nations in protest of its recognition of breakaway Bangladesh.

1974 – Pan Am Flight 806 crashes near Pago Pago International Airport in American Samoa, killing 97.

1975 – The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary.

1979 – A Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo.

1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner".

1989 – The American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan is closed.

1995 – Hydroxycarbamide becomes the first approved preventive treatment for sickle cell disease.

2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ivory Coast, killing 169.

2013 – Naro-1 becomes the first carrier rocket launched by South Korea.

2020 – The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

 

TODAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 29

 

January 29

 

904 – Sergius III is elected pope, after coming out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher.

946 – Caliph al-Mustakfi is blinded and deposed by Mu'izz al-Dawla, ruler of the Buyid Empire. He is succeeded by al-Muti as caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate.

1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: France defeats Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne.

1819 – Stamford Raffles lands on the island of Singapore.

1845 – "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.

1850 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.

1856 – Queen Victoria issues a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual that establishes the Victoria Cross to recognise acts of valour by British military personnel during the Crimean War.

1861 – Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.

1863 – The Bear River Massacre: A detachment of California Volunteers led by Colonel Patrick Edward Connor engage the Shoshone at Bear River, Washington Territory, killing hundreds of men, women and children.

1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

1891 – Liliʻuokalani is proclaimed the last monarch and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1907 – Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.

1911 – Mexican Revolution: Mexicali is captured by the Mexican Liberal Party, igniting the Magonista rebellion of 1911.

1918 – Ukrainian–Soviet War: The Bolshevik Red Army, on its way to besiege Kyiv, is met by a small group of military students at the Battle of Kruty.

1918 – Ukrainian–Soviet War: An armed uprising organized by the Bolsheviks in anticipation of the encroaching Red Army begins at the Kiev Arsenal, which will be put down six days later.

1936 – The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced.

1940 – Three trains on the Nishinari Line; present Sakurajima Line, in Osaka, Japan, collide and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station. One hundred and eighty-one people are killed.

1943 – World War II: The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, USS Chicago (CA-29) is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.

1944 – World War II: Approximately 38 people are killed and about a dozen injured when the Polish village of Koniuchy (present-day Kaniūkai, Lithuania) is attacked by Soviet partisan units.

1944 – World War II: In Bologna, Italy, the Anatomical theatre of the Archiginnasio is completely destroyed in an air-raid.

1973 – EgyptAir Flight 741 crashes into the Kyrenia Mountains in Cyprus, killing 37 people.

1983 – Singapore cable car crash: Panamanian-registered oil rig, Eniwetok, strikes the cables of the Singapore Cable Car system linking the mainland and Sentosa Island, causing two cabins to fall into the water and killing seven people and leaving thirteen others trapped for hours.

1989 – Cold War: Hungary establishes diplomatic relations with South Korea, making it the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so.

1991 – Gulf War: The Battle of Khafji, the first major ground engagement of the war, as well as its deadliest, begins between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

1996 – President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear weapons testing.

2001 – Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.

2002 – In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

2005 – The first direct commercial flights from mainland China (from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines flight lands in Beijing.

2008 – An Egyptian court rules that people who do not adhere to one of the three government-recognised religions, while not allowed to list any belief outside of those three, are still eligible to receive government identity documents.

2009 – Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office following his conviction of several corruption charges, including solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for an appointment to the United States Senate as a replacement for then-U.S. president-elect Barack Obama.

2013 – SCAT Airlines Flight 760 crashes near the Kazakh city of Almaty, killing 21 people.

2014 – Rojava conflict: The Afrin Canton declares its autonomy from the Syrian Arab Republic.

2017 – A gunman opens fire at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, killing six and wounding 19 others in a spree shooting.

2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Trump administration establishes the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.