Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 30
This is a list of selected January 30 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
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Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Menai Suspension Bridge -
Mahatma Gandhi -
Mahatma Gandhi -
William Goebel
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1820 – Edward Bransfield of the Royal Navy landed on the mainland of Antarctica. | {{no footnotes}} and Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen reaching Antarctica also available on SA Jan 28 |
| 1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, one of the world's first modern suspension bridges, opened. | refimprove |
Eligible
- 1661 – Two years after his death, Oliver Cromwell's remains were exhumed for a posthumous execution and his head was placed on a spike above Westminster Hall in London, where it remained until 1685.
- 1847 – The town of Yerba Buena in Mexican California was renamed San Francisco.
- 1858 – The Hallé, the United Kingdom's oldest extant symphony orchestra, and the fourth oldest in the world, held their first concert in Manchester.
- 1900 – The day before he was sworn in as Governor of Kentucky, William Goebel was shot by an unknown assailant and mortally wounded. He remains the only state governor in the United States to be assassinated while in office.
- 1942 – World War II: In one of the largest losses of life in a single sinking in maritime history, the Soviet submarine S-13 sank the Wilhelm Gustloff carrying German soldiers and refugees evacuating from East Prussia, killing at least 9,400 people.
- 1948 – Nathuram Godse fatally shot Mahatma Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement, at Birla House in Delhi.
- 1964 – In a bloodless coup, General Nguyen Khanh overthrew General Duong Van Minh's military junta in South Vietnam, less than three months after Minh executed a a bloody coup himself.
- 1972 – On Bloody Sunday, members of the British Parachute Regiment shot at twenty-six civil rights protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing at least thirteen people.
- 1982 – Richard Skrenta's "Elk Cloner" became first known computer virus found "in the wild". It infected Apple II computers via floppy disk.
January 30: Martyrs' Day in India
- 1649 – English Civil War: King Charles I (pictured), who was defeated in both the First and the Second Civil Wars, was beheaded for high treason in front of the Banqueting House in London.
- 1930 – Soviet meteorologist Pavel Molchanov launched one of the world's first radiosondes, a device attached to weather balloons to measure various atmospheric parameters.
- 1945 – World War II: Allied forces liberated over 500 prisoners of war from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines.
- 1959 – On the return leg of her maiden voyage, the "unsinkable" Danish ocean liner Hans Hedtoft struck an iceberg and sank with all 95 passengers and crew lost.
- 2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Côte d'Ivoire shortly after takeoff, killing 169 on board.