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.