Today in History: July 30

Today in History: July 30

101 BC 
Battle of Vercellae: Roman army under Gaius Marius defeats the Cimbri in Cisalpine Gaul, ending the Celto-Germanic threat on Italy's border with over 100,000 Cimbri killed.

762
City of Baghdad founded by Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur, just north of ancient Baghdad.

1178 
Frederick I (Barbarossa), Holy Roman Emperor, crowned King of Burgundy.

1419 
First defenestration of Prague: anti-Catholic Hussites, followers of executed reformer Jan Hus, storm Prague town hall and throw the judge, mayor and several city council members out the windows. They die in the fall or killed by crowd outside.

1619
The first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.

1729
Baltimore, Md. was founded.

1811
Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, is executed by the Spanish in Chihuahua, Mexico.

1792
The French national anthem “La Marseillaise” (lah mar-seh-YEHZ’), by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was first sung in Paris by troops arriving from Marseille.

1863
Indian Wars: Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah.

1869
The Charles, considered the world’s first "oil tanker", departs from the United States headed for Europe with a bulk capacity of 7,000 barrels of oil.

1914 
After initial reluctance, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia is persuaded to decree a general mobilizations in response to Austria; 'Think of the thousands and thousands of men who will be sent to their deaths!' he claims.

1916 
German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, New Jersey, killing about a dozen people.

1935
1st Penguin book is published, starting the paperback revolution.

1937
Russian Politburo issues NKVD Order no. 00447, to repress former kulak and anti-soviets, 269,100 to be arrested, 76,000 to be shot. Part of the Great Purge.

1942 
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women’s auxiliary agency in the Navy known as “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service” _ WAVES for short.

1945
The Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 317 out of nearly 1,200 men survived.

1956
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making “In God We Trust” the national motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one).

1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a measure creating Medicare, which began operating the following year.

1975
Former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit; although presumed dead, his remains have never been found.

1980
Israel’s Knesset passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

2001
Robert Mueller (MUHL’-ur), President George W. Bush’s choice to head the FBI, promised the Senate Judiciary Committee that if confirmed, he would move forcefully to fix problems at the agency. (Mueller became FBI director on Sept. 4, 2001, a week before the 9/11 attacks.)

2002
WNBA player Lisa Leslie of the Los Angeles Sparks became the first woman to dunk in a professional game, jamming on a breakaway in the first half of the Sparks’ 82-73 loss to the Miami Sol.

Births On This Day – 30 July

1818 Emily Brontë, English novelist (Wuthering Heights), born in Thornton, West Yorkshire (d. 1848)

1863 Henry Ford, American industrialist and auto maker (Ford Model T), born in Dearborn Township, Michigan (d. 1947)

1893 Fatima Jinnah, Mother of Pakistan, sister and close adviser of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, born in Karachi, Bombay Presidency, British India (d. 1967)

1894 Blanche Knopf, American publisher, president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and wife of publisher Alfred A. Knopf Sr., born in NYC, New York (d. 1966)

1947 Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-American body builder, actor (Terminator) and politician (38th Governor of California), born in Thal, Austria

Deaths On This Day – 30 July

1683 Maria Theresa of Spain, queen of Louis XIV of France, dies at 44

1718 William Penn, English Philosopher, Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania (No cross, no crown), dies at 73

1898 Otto von Bismarck, German "Iron" chancellor, dies at 83

1918 Joyce Kilmer, American poet, dies at 31

1997 Bảo Đại, last Emperor of Vietnam (1926-45) and Chief of State of South Vietnam (1949-55), dies at 85