October 30 in History
1863 — Danish Prince Vilhelm, 17, arrives in Athens to assume his throne as George I, King of the Hellenes, following his ceremonial enthronement in Copenhagen on June 6. He was elected king by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed Otto (a Bavarian prince who ruled as King of Greece from the establishment of the monarchy on May 27 1832) on October 23 1862. George is assassinated on March 18 1913 at age 67 while out on an afternoon walk in Thessaloniki.
1878 — Arthur Scherbius, German electrical engineer and inventor of the mechanical cipher Enigma machine (used extensively by Nazi Germany during World War 2), is born in Frankfurt.
1888 — The Rudd Concession, a written concession for exclusive mining rights in Matabeleland, Mashonaland and other adjoining territories in what is today Zimbabwe, is granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to three agents acting on behalf of Cecil Rhodes. Despite Lobengula’s attempts to disavow it, it becomes the foundation for the’royal charter granted by the UK to Rhodes s British South Africa Company in October 1889.
1938 — Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation over the CBS Radio Network of HG Wells’s 1898 novel of a Martian invasion “The War of the Worlds”, causing massive panic in some of the audience in the US. 1944 — Sisters Margot and Anne Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the BergenBelsen concentration camp, where they die from typhus in February/March 1945, aged 19 and 15 respectively.
1961 — The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba, a thermonuclear aerial bomb, the most powerful explosive device ever created and tested. It is dropped by parachute from a Tu-95V aircraft and detonates 4,000m above the cape Sukhoy Nos of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya. 1962 — Courtney Walsh, Jamaican cricketer, is born in Kingston. The fast bowler plays 132 Tests (22 as captain) and 205 ODIs for the West Indies from 1984 to 2001 and takes 519 and 227 wickets respectively.
1973 — The Bosphorus Bridge (officially the 15 July Martyrs Bridge) in Istanbul, Turkey, is opened, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus Strait. 1980 — El Salvador and Honduras agree to put the border dispute fought over in 1969’s Football War before the International Court of Justice.
1983 — The first democratic elections are held in Argentina after seven years of military rule.
1995 — Quebec citizens narrowly vote (50.58%-49.42%), with a voter turnout of 93.52%, in favour of remaining a province of Canada in their second referendum on national sovereignty. The first referendum on May 20 1980 was more clear-cut, 59.56%-40.44%.
2005 — The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche — built between 1726 and 1743, and destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War 2 — is reconsecrated after a 13-year rebuilding project.