- Jan 1 Earl Claus von Stauffenberg promoted to 2nd lieutenant
- Jan 1 Jurgens & Van den Berg merge with Lever Brothers to form Unilever
Event of Interest
Jan 5 Mao Zedong writes "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire"
Mao Zedong
Meeting of Interest
Jan 5 Bonnie Parker meets Clyde Barrow for the first time at Clarence Clay's house
Bonnie Parker
Clyde Barrow
Event of Interest
Jan 9 Albert Kahn Associates architectural firm become consulting architects for all industrial construction in the Soviet Union
Albert Kahn
- Jan 10 Commencement of NZ's 1st Test, v England in Christchurch, New Zealand
- Jan 10 Maurice Allom takes Test hat-trick England v NZ Christchurch
- Jan 10 Mordovian Autonomous Region in RSFSR constituted
- Jan 13 "Mickey Mouse" comic strip 1st appears
- Jan 18 -27°F (-33°C), Watts, Oklahoma (state record)
- Jan 20 1st radio broadcast of "Lone Ranger" (WXYZ-Detroit)
- Jan 22 -35°F (-37°C), Mount Carroll, Illinois (state record)
- Jan 23 Clyde Tombaugh photographs planet Pluto
- Jan 23 George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Virginia established
- Jan 23 WIS-AM (now WOMG) in Columbia SC begins radio transmissions
- Jan 24 Stewie Dempster scores New Zealand's 1st Test century
- Jan 26 Cleveland's Terminal Tower opens (52 stories)
- Jan 30 Russia launches their 1st radiosonde - a battery-powered telemetry instrument carried into the atmosphere to measure various parameters and transmit them by radio to a ground receiver- from Pavlovsk, USSR.
- Jan 31 1st US glider flight from a dirigible, Lakehurst, New Jersey
Event of Interest
Feb 3 William Howard Taft resigns as US chief justice for health reasons
William Howard Taft
- Feb 3 The Indochinese Communist Party of Vietnam is established
- Feb 4 1st tieless, soundless, shockless streetcar tracks, New Orleans
- Feb 5 5th Aliyah to Israel begins
- Feb 10 Grain Stabilization Corporation authorized by Congress
- Feb 17 French government of André Tardieu falls for the first time
- Feb 18 Cow flown & milked, milk sealed in paper containers & parachuted
- Feb 18 Luigi Pirandello's "Come Tu Mi Vuoi" premieres in Milan
- Feb 18 US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
Event of Interest
Feb 21 Marc Connelly's "Green Pastures" premieres in NYC
Marc Connelly
- Feb 25 Check photographing device patented
- Feb 26 1st red & green traffic lights installed in Manhattan, NYC
- Feb 27 Bouvet Island declared a Norwegian dependency
- Mar 2 1st US indoor glider flight, St Louis Terminal Building
- Mar 4 Coolidge Dam in Arizona dedicated
- Mar 4 Emma Fahning bowls 1st sanctioned 300 game by a woman
- Mar 4 Terrible floods ransack Languedoc and the surrounds in south-west France, resulting in twelve departments being submerged by water and causing the death of over 700 people.
- Mar 7 NY Times agrees to capitalize the n in "Negro"
- Mar 11 William Taft, US 27th President & Chief Justice buried in Arlington
Event of Interest
Mar 12 Mahatma Gandhi begins his famous 200 mile (300km) protest march against the widely hated British salt tax
Mahatma Gandhi
- Mar 12 Stanislawa Walasiewicz [Stella Walsh] sets world record for the 220-yard dash (0:26.1)
- Mar 13 Clyde Tombaugh announces discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory
- Mar 15 1st seaplane glider flown at Port Washington, NY
- Mar 15 1st streamlined submarine of US navy, USS Nautilus, launched
- Mar 16 USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) floated out to become a national shrine
- Mar 17 Construction begins of the Empire State Building, the world's 1st skyscraper of 100+ stories, on 5th Avenue in New York City
- Mar 19 Nakagawa Soen accepted as a student of Katsube Keigaku Roshi
- Mar 20 Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 129.39 kph
Event of Interest
Mar 20 American fast food restaurant chain "KFC" [Kentucky Fried Chicken] is founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in North Corbin, Kentucky
Colonel Sanders
Istanbul – The Queen of Cities
Mar 28 Turkish cities Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara
Read Article
Event of Interest
Apr 2 Ras Tafari Makonnen becomes Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
Haile Selassie
- Apr 4 The Communist Party of Panama is founded
- Apr 6 1st transcontinental glider tow completed
- Apr 6 Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar
- Apr 10 Thiokol synthetic rubber 1st produced in Yardley, New Jersey
- Apr 14 Philip Barry's "Hotel Universe" premieres in NYC
- Apr 17 Abkhazian ASSR forms in Georgian SSR
- Apr 17 DuPont scientist Elmer K. Bolton invents neoprene using Julius Nieuwland's divinyl acetylene
- Apr 18 Attempted raid on the armoury of police and auxiliary forces in Chittagong in Bengal province, British India by armed pro-independence revolutionaries led by Surya Sen popularly known as Master-da
- Apr 21 Fire at Ohio State Penitentiary kills 322
- Apr 21 Vladimir Mayakovsky's "Moskva Golid" premieres in Moscow
- Apr 22 US, Britain & Japan sign London Naval Treaty
- Apr 22 British troops battle pro-independence revolutionaries in the Jalalabad hills near Chittagong, Bengal province, British India, 80 troops and 12 revolutionaries killed
- Apr 29 North Sea floodgate at Ijmuiden (biggest in world) officially opens
- Apr 29 Telephone connection Britain-Australia goes into service
- May 1 The planet Pluto is officially named by 11 year-old Venetia Burney
- May 2 Des Moines (Western League) defeats Wichita 13-6 to open 1st ballpark with permanently installed lights
Event of Interest
May 5 Amy Johnson takes off - first woman to fly solo from England to Australia
Amy Johnson
- May 7 Duleepsinhji scores 333 for Sussex v Northants in 330 mins
- May 10 1st US planetarium opens (Adler-Chicago)
- May 10 Clarrie Grimmett takes 10 for 37 v Yorkshire at Sheffield
- May 12 Pulitzer prize awarded to Marc Connelly (Green Pastures)
- May 15 Ellen Church becomes 1st female airline stewardess aboard a United flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne
- May 19 White women win voting rights in South Africa
- May 20 1st airplane catapulted from a dirigible, Charles Nicholson, pilot
- May 24 Amy Johnson becomes the 1st woman to fly solo from England to Australia
- May 26 Supreme Court rules buying liquor does not violate the Constitution
- May 27 Richard Drew invents masking tape
Event of Interest
May 27 The 1,046-foot (319-meter) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public
Walter Chrysler
- Jun 13 22 people killed by hailstones in Siatista, Greece
- Jun 16 Sovnarkom establishes decree time in the USSR
- Jun 18 Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Franklin Institute science museum held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Jun 24 1st detection of airplane using reflected radio waves, a precursor to radar, by US Naval Research Laboratory engineers, Anacostia, Washington, D.C.
- Jun 28 1st night game in Detroit at newly built Hamtramck Stadium as Negro League Detroit Stars take on KC Monarchs
- Jun 30 1st round-the-world radio broadcast Schenectady, NY
- Jul 1 Great Britain signs accord for Independence of Iraq
- Jul 3 US Veterans Administration created
Herbert Hoover
- Jul 13 David Sarnoff reports in NY Times "TV would be a theater in every home"
Historic Expedition
Jul 19 Richard E. Byrd, Laurence McKinley Gould, and their polar expedition team return to the United States following the first exploration of the interior of Antarctica
Richard E. Byrd
- Jul 20 106°F (41°C), Washington, D.C. (district record)
- Jul 21 110°F (43°C) at Millsboro, Delaware (state record)
- Jul 21 US Veterans Administration forms
- Jul 23 Earthquake strikes Ariano in Italy, 1,500 killed
- Jul 23 Pitts Pie Traynor ends both games with HRs (1st in 9th, 2nd in 13th)
- Jul 25 Philadelphia Athletics triple steal in 1st and 4th innings vs Cleveland
- Jul 28 114°F (46°C), Greensburg, Kentucky (state record)
- Jul 29 115°F (46°C), Holly Springs, Mississippi (state record)
- Jul 29 Airship R100, 1st passenger-carrying flight from England to Canada
- Aug 4 Child labor laws established in Belgium
- Aug 6 Supreme Court Justice John Force Crater disappears in NYC
- Aug 6 Remains of balloon expedition of Solamon August Andrées to North Pole in 1897, found at Kvit oya Spitsbergen
- Aug 7 A large mob estimated at 2,000, lynch two young black men Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana
Election of Interest
Aug 7 Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King loses the election to Richard Bedford Bennett of the Conservative Party
Richard Bedford Bennett
Mackenzie King
Historic Invention
Aug 12 Clarence Birdseye is granted a patent for method for quick freezing food (patent US 1773079 A)
Clarence Birdseye
- Aug 16 I British Empire Games open in Hamilton, Canada
- Aug 18 Eastern Airlines begins passenger service
- Aug 21 Prohibition of Wieringermeer finished
- Aug 23 1st British Empire Games close in Hamilton, Canada
- Aug 29 The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
- Sep 1 NY World reports disappearance of supreme court justice Joseph Crater
- Sep 2 1st non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US (37 hrs)
- Sep 3 Hurricane kills 2,000, injures 4,000 (Dominican Republic)
- Sep 4 Cambridge Theatre opens in London
Coup d'état
Sep 6 Democratically elected Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.
Hipólito Yrigoyen
- Sep 6 3rd Women's World Games (track & field competition for women) is conducted over 3-days at the Letná Stadium in Prague, Czechoslovakia
- Sep 8 1st appearance of comic strip "Blondie"
- Sep 8 NYC public schools begin teaching Hebrew
- Sep 8 Richard Drew creates Scotch tape
- Sep 10 Charles E Mitchell, named minister to Liberia
- Sep 11 Stromboli volcano (Sicily) throws 2-ton basaltic rocks 2 miles
- Sep 14 Nazis gain 107 seats in German election
- Sep 15 1st international bridge match is held in London. US team defeats England
- Sep 18 Philadelphia A's win AL championship for 2nd year in a row
- Sep 20 Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed by Archbishop Mar Ivanios.
- Sep 21 Johann Ostermeyer patents flashbulb
- Sep 25 Austrian government of Vaugoin forms
- Sep 25 Zoe Akins' "Greeks Had a Word for it" premieres in NYC
- Sep 29 1st Canadian football game played under lights, Hamilton-UBC
- Sep 29 Boquerón battle ends Paraguay border dispute
- Sep 29 NYC College offers 1st course in radio advertising
- Oct 5 British airship crashes in storm at Beauvais, France, 48 die
- Oct 5 Homecoming of the bodies of Swedish polar balloon expedition (1897) led by Salomon August Andrée
- Oct 9 1st transcontinental flight by a woman completed, Laura Ingalls
- Oct 11 Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne, Australia, won the VFL premiership for the fourth consecutive year.
- Oct 13 New German Reichstag opens with 107 NSDAP members in uniform
- Oct 19 Jules Ladoumègue runs world record 1 km (2:23.6)
- Oct 20 British White Paper restricts Jews from buying Arab land
- Oct 22 Blake & Razaf's "Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1930" premieres in NYC
Coup d'état
Oct 24 A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Vargas then installed as "provisional president."
Getulio Vargas
- Oct 25 1st football game in Atlantic City Convention Center
- Oct 25 1st scheduled transcontinental air service began
- Oct 29 1st Eastern Canada night CF game: Oshawa vs Toronto Balmy Beach
- Oct 30 Turkey & Greece sign a treaty of friendship
- Nov 2 Coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Haile Selassie I, 225th Emperor of Ethiopian Solmonic Dynasty
- Nov 3 First vehicular tunnel to a foreign country (Detroit-Windsor) opens
Event of Interest
Nov 3 Bank of Italy renamed Bank of America
Amadeo Giannini
- Nov 3 Getúlio Dornelles Vargas became Head of the Provisional Government in Brazil after a bloodless coup on October 24.
- Nov 5 Nobel for literature awarded to Sinclair Lewis for "Babbitt"
- Nov 8 Friedrich Wolf's "Die Matrosen von Cattaro" premieres in Berlin
- Nov 9 1st nonstop airplane flight from NY to Panama
Historic Invention
Nov 11 Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention of the Einstein refrigerator
Albert Einstein
Leó Szilárd
Event of Interest
Nov 22 Elijah Muhammad forms Nation of Islam in Detroit
Elijah Muhammad
- Nov 23 NY Giant Hap Moran runs 91 yards for a TD from a scrimmage
- Nov 24 Ruth Nichols sets women's transcontinental air flight record (Mineola, NY to California), in a Lockheed-Vega
- Nov 25 Ito, Japan records 690 earthquake shocks in 1 day
- Dec 3 Airborn chemicals combine with fog to kill 60 (Meuse Valley, Belgium)
- Dec 3 Otto Ender forms Austrian government
- Dec 4 Vatican approves rhythm method for birth control
- Dec 8 Broadway Theater opens at 1681 Broadway NYC
- Dec 10 Indian Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman is presented with the Nobel Prize for Physics for work on light scattering - first Asian and non-white to win a Science Nobel
Nobel Prize
Dec 10 German chemist Hans Fischer is awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on haemin
Hans Fischer
Event of Interest
Dec 19 James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP
James Weldon Johnson
- Dec 24 F Garcia Lorca's "La Zapatera Prodigiosa" premieres in Madrid
- Dec 25 Slinger Nitschke scores 142 SA v Qld at Adelaide before 5,422
- Dec 25 Tasmania all out 280, WI 2-139 at Hobart Crowd 2,500
- Dec 29 Fred P. Newton completes longest swim ever (1826 miles), when he swam in the Mississippi River from Ford Dam, Minnesota, to New Orleans
- Dec 31 Pontifical encyclical Casti connubii against mixed marriages
- Dec 31 US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in 1930