30th July, on this day

579 Benedict I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
657 St Vitalian begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1419 First Defenestration of Prague.
1502 Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage.
1608 At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years.
1619 The first legislative assembly in America, known as the House of Burgesses, is convened at Jamestown, Virginia
1629 An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills 10,000 people.
1656 Charles X of Sweden defeats a Polish army at the Battle of Warsaw - two days after invading Poland
1733 Society of Freemasons opens 1st American lodge in Boston
1756 Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly-built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers.
1792 500 Marseillaisian men sing France's national anthem for 1st time
1811 Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, executed by the Spanish in Chihuahua, Mexico.
1839 Slave rebels, take over slaver Amistad
1863 President Lincoln issues "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black prisoner shot
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.
1864 Petersburg Campaign-Battle of the Crater
1866 New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.
1870 Staten Island ferry "Westfield" burns, killing 100
1874 1st baseball teams to play outside US, Boston-Phila in British Isles
1908 Around the World Autombile Race ends in Paris
1909 US Army accepts delivery of 1st military airplane
1913 Conclusion of the 2nd Balkan War
1916 German saboteurs blow up a munitions plant on Black Tom Island, NJ
1923 New Zealand claims Ross Dependency
1928 George Eastman demonstrates 1st colour movie
1930 Uruguay beats Argentina 4-2 for soccer's 1st World Cup in Montevideo
1932 10th modern Olympic games opens in Los Angeles
1932 Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first Academy Award winning cartoon and first cartoon short to use Technicolor, premieres.
1935 'Penguin' paperback books, founded by Allen Lane, first go on sale in Britain
1942 FDR signs bill creating women's Navy auxiliary agency (WAVES)
1942 German SS kills 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
1943 Last Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney movie released (Girl Crazy)
1945 World War II: US cruiser Indianapolis is sunk by a Japanese submarine - at least 800 crew are killed. The ship was returning to port after delivering nuclear material for making an atomic bomb
1946 1st rocket attains 100 mi (167 km) altitude, White Sands, NM
1948 Professional wrestling premiers on prime-time network TV (DuMont)
1949 British warship HMS Amethyst escapes from China by sailing down the Yangtze River. The warship had been stranded for 3 months after Chinese Communists refused to agree its safe passage
1954 Elvis Presley makes his debut as a public performer.
1956
A Joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto.
1963 Kim Philby, British intelligence officer and Soviet spy, flees Britain and is given political asylum in the USSR
1965 LBJ signs Medicare bill, which went into effect following year
1966 In US Beatles' "Yesterday... & Today," album goes number 1 and stays for 5 weeks
1966 England win football's World Cup - beating West Germany 4-2 in the final at Wembley Stadium in London. England forward Geoff Hurst becomes the only man to score a hat-trick in a world cup final
1967 Race riot in Milwaukee (4 killed)
1968 Beatles' Apple Boutique closes, entire inventory is given away
1969 US President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyen Van Thieu and with U.S. military commanders.
1969 Barbra Striesand opens for Liberace at International Hotel, Las Vegas
1970 30,000 attend Powder Ridge Rock Festival, Middlefield Ct
1971 George Harrison releases "Bangladesh"
1971 Japanese Boeing 727 collides with an F-86 fighter killing 162
1971 Apollo 15 lands on Mare Imbrium on the Moon with first Lunar Rover on the moon.
1974 Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the United States Supreme Court and House of Reps recommends 3 articles of impeachment of Nixon
1975 Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappears in suburban Detroit
1980 British New Hebrides becomes independent and takes name Vanuatu
1983 Weight lifter Sergei Didyk of USSR jerks a record 261 kg
1984 Alvenus tanker at Cameron La, spills 2.8 million gallons of oil
1989 General Jaruzelski is forced to step down after eight years as leader of the Communist Party in Poland
1990 5 Bank of Credit and Commerce members found guilty of money laundering
1991 MTV announces it will split into 3 channels in 1993
1997 Eighteen lives are lost in the Thredbo Landslide in New South Wales, Australia.
2002 The accounting law referred to as "The Sarbanes Oxley Act" was signed into law by United States President George W. Bush.
2003 In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.
2006 World's longest running music show Top of the Pops broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.
2006 At least 28 Lebanese civilians, including 16 children, were killed when Israel Air Force attacked a building in Qana in what is called the Second Qana massacre.

30th July 2006

Dozens killed in Lebanon air raid

Congolese vote in landmark polls

Sri Lanka advances against Tamils

30th July 2007

Corruption 'mars Iraq rebuilding'

Academics oppose Israel boycott

Ivory Coast burns weapons

30th July 2008

Iraqis squeeze rebel stronghold

Web curbs for Olympic journalists

Canadian Arctic sheds ice chunk

30th July 2009

Travel chaos after Majorca bomb

Algerian soldiers 'die in ambush'

MS woman wins right-to-die fight

30th July 2010

Flooding kills 100s in Pakistan

Deadly forest fires ravage Russia

Greek military to supply fuel amid strike

Birthdates which occurred on 30th July :

1511 Giorgio Vasari painter/architect/art historian (Vasari's Lives)
1818 Emily Bront‰ England, novelist (Wuthering Heights)
1855 James Edward Kelly US, sculptor "Sculptor of American History"
1857 Thorstein Veblen US, economist (Theory of the Leisure Class-1899)
1863 Henry Ford Dearborn Township, Mich, auto maker (Ford)
1880 Robert Rutherford McCormick US, editor/publisher Chicago Tribune
1887 Timothy Mara NFL owner (NY Giants)
1889 Vladimir Zworykin electronics engineer/inventor, father of TV
1890 Casey Stengel NY Yankee (1949-60) & 1st NY Met manager
1898 Henry Moore England, sculptor (Vertebrae)
1899 Gerald Moore England, pianist (Am I Too Loud)
19-- Ilene Kristen actress (Ryan's Hope)
19-- Lisa Mordente New Hyde Park NJ, actress (Teresa-Doc, Viva Valdez)
1909 Cyril Northcote Parkinson England, historian (Pursuit of Progress)
1921 Grant Johannesen Salt Lake City Ut, pianist (Ost‚nd 1st prize 1947)
1924 William Gass Fargo, ND, novelist, philosopher (Omensetter's Luck)
1925 Jacques Sernas Lithuana, actor (La Dolce Vita, Helen of Troy)
1929 Christine McGuire Middletown Oh singer (McGuire Sisters-Sugartime)
1929 Sid Kroft Athens Greece, puppeteer (Barbara Mandrell Show)
1931 Joan Vohs St Albans NY, actress (Fort Ti, Vice Squad, Sabrina)
1933 Edd "Kookie" Byrnes LA, actor (77 Sunset Strip, Jack the Ripper)
1934 Ben Piazza Ark, actor (Blues Brothers, Ben Casey, Dallas)
1936 Ralph Taeger Richmond Hill NY, actor (Klondike, Acapulco, Hondo)
1938 Vayachselav Ivanenko USSR, 50K walker (Olympic-gold-1988)
1939 Eleanor Smeal heads National Organization for Women
1939 Peter Bogdanovich director/producer (The Last Picture Show)
1940 Patricia Schroeder (Rep-D-Colo)
1940 Reva Rose Chicago Ill, actress (Temperature's Rising)
1941 Count Desmond (Edward Benjamin) Binghamton NY, sword swallower
1941 Paul Anka Ottawa Ontario, singer (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)
1945 David Sanborn saxophonist (David Letterman)
1947 Arnold Schwarzenegger Austria, body builder (Commando, Terminator)
1947 William Atherton Ct, actor (Real Genius, Ghostbusters, Class of 44)
1950 Frank Stallone NYC, actor (Barfly, Outlaw Force)
1954 Ken Olin Chicago Ill, actor (Hill St Blues, Michael-30 Something)
1956 Delta Burke Orlando Fla, actress (Suzanne-Designing Women)
1956 Phil Fearon rocker (Galaxy, Kandidate-I Don't Want to Lose You)
1957 Bill Cartwright basketball player (NY Knicks)
1957 Mark Tymchyshyn Minneapolis, actor (Gavin-As The World Turns)
1958 Daley Thomas London, Decathalete (Olympic-gold-1980, 1984)
1958 Kate Bush Plumstead England, singer/songwriter (Wild Things)
1958 Richard Burge actor (Another World)
1963 Monique Gabrielle LA Cal, actress (Bad Girls 4, Amazon Women on Moon)
1965 Tex Axile rocker (Transvision Vamp-Velveteen)
1975 Tifini Hale Palm Springs Calif, rocker (Party-Rodeo, That's Why)

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Deaths which occurred on July 30th:
1914 Jean Jaur‚s leading socialist, assassinated in Paris
1980 Charles McGraw actor (Michael-Falcon, Smith Family), dies at 66
1983 Howard Deitz MGM executive, dies at 86 of Parkinson's disease
1983 Lynn Fontanne Broadway's premier actresses, dies at 95