April 30 historic events
1006 Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation Lupus.
1492 Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.
1563 Jews are expelled from France by order of Charles VI.
1789 On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
A statue of Washington stands on that spot in lower Manhattan.
1803 Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
A great bargain, to be quite franc. Merci.
1900 Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
Dole and other rich businessmen basically stole Hawaii out from under its former king, and later, its queen.
1900 Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.
1927 The Federal Industrial Institute for Women, opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women’s federal prison in the United States.
1943 World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.
1947 In Nevada, the Boulder Dam is renamed Hoover Dam a second time.
1952 Anne Frank’s diary is published in English. The British public gets the chance to read The Diary of a Young Girl, written by Anne Frank who hid from the Nazis in Holland during the war.
1956 Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming “I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty.”
1973 Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aids H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.
1975 Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.
1987 New York Islander Mike Bossy plays his final game.
The four-time Stanley Cup champion and hockey hall-of-famer had to retire at 30, due to a bad back.
1993 CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
1993 The world number one women’s tennis player, Monica Seles, is stabbed in the back during a quarter-final match in Hamburg.
1995 After 120 years the last 15 A&S (Abraham and Strauss) department stores close.
2001 Chandra Levy, a federal government intern, went missing. Her remains were found more than a year later in a Washington, D.C., park.
Levy’s disapearance and her association with Congressman Gary Condit dominated headlines for months in 2001, until Sept. 11. Levy’s remains were found about a year later. The crime remains unsolved.
2008 Skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters.
Gut Shabbos