history at a glance
TODAY is Sunday July 30 the 211th day of the year. There are 154 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of the Crater: Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
1865 – The steamboat Brother Jonathan sinks off the coast of Crescent City, California, killing 225 passengers, the deadliest shipwreck on the Pacific Coast of the U.S. at the time.
1866 – New Orleans, Louisiana’s Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.
1871 – The Staten Island Ferry Westfield’s boiler explodes, killing over 85 people.
1912 – Japan’s Emperor Meiji dies and is succeeded by his son Yoshihito, who is now known as the Emperor Taisho.
1916 – Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey.
1930 – In Montevideo, Uruguay wins the first FIFA World Cup.
1932 – Premiere of Walt Disney’s Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short.
1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen.
1956 – A joint resolution of the US Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God we trust as the US national motto.
1962 – The Trans-Canada Highway, the largest national highway in the world, is officially opened.
1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
1966 – England defeats West Germany to win the 1966 FIFA World Cup at Wembley after extra time.
1969 – Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyen Van Thieu and US military commanders.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission: David Scott and James Irwin on the Apollo Lunar Module Falcon land on the Moon with the first Lunar Rover.
1971 – An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 and a Japanese Air Force F-86 collide over Morioka, Iwate, Japan killing 162.
1974 – Watergate scandal: US President Richard Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of the United States.
1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again, and will be declared legally dead on this date in 1982.
1978 – The 730 (transport), Okinawa Prefecture changes its traffic on the right-hand side of the road to the left-hand side.
1980 – Vanuatu gains independence.
1980 – Israel’s Knesset passes the Jerusalem Law 1990 – George Steinbrenner is forced by Commissioner Fay Vincent to resign as principal partner of New York Yankees for hiring Howie Spira to “get dirt” on Dave Winfield.
2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.
2006 – The world’s longest running music show Top of the Pops is broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.
2012 – A train fire kills 32 passengers and injures 27 on the Tamil Nadu Express in Andhra Pradesh, India.
2012 – A power grid failure in Delhi leaves more than 300 million people without power in northern India.
2014 – One hundred and fifty people are trapped after a landslide in the village of Ambe in the Pune district in India’s Maharashtra state with 20 killed.