First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - APRIL 30th

Carl Friedrich Gauss, Quote

“You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.”

~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

Wikiquote (Carl Friedrich Gauss (April 30, 1777 – February 23, 1855) a German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics.)

This Day in History

April 30th, 311

Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that began growing on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world

Roman Empire:
311 - The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

Wikipedia  Image: Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Latin: Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini, Italian: Tempio di Giove Ottimo Massimo, English: "Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitoline") was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill.
● Ancient roman statue ● Detail of Head from Roman Statue of Antinous, credit Corbis ● Statue of Neptune, Trevi Fountain, Rome ● International Sand Sculpture Festival, FIESA 7 ancient Rome.


April 30th, 313

Byzantine Empire Collage

Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
313 - Battle of Tzirallum; Emperor Licinius defeats Maximinus II and unifies the Eastern Roman Empire..

Wikipedia  Image: The Baptism of Constantine painted by Raphael's pupils (1520–1524, fresco, Vatican City, Apostolic Palace); Mural of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 19th century, Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria; Justinian I depicted on one of the famous mosaics of the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna; The Greek fire was first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (from the Madrid Skylitzes, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid); Alexios I, founder of the Komnenos dynasty.


April 30th, 1492

Christopher Columbus' fleet of three ships sets sail from Spain in 1492, credit Kean Collection / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.

Wikipedia  Paintings: Christopher Columbus' fleet of three ships sets sail from Spain in 1492. credit Kean Collection / Hulton Archive / Getty Images; Christopher Columbus pointing to land in the New World; Romantic Painting of Christopher Columbus arriving to the Americas Primer desembarco de Cristóbal Colón en América, by Dióscoro Puebla 1862.


April 30th, 1513

Henry VIII; Coat of Arms and Seal of Henry VIII of England; Catherine of Aragon as a young widow, by court painter Michael Sittow, 1502; Anne Boleyn, Henry's second queen; a later copy of an original painted 1534; Jane Seymour<, Henry's third wife; Anne of Cleves, Henry's forth wife by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539; Catherine Howard<, Henry's fifth wife, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540; Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth and last wife

Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, is executed on the orders of Henry VIII.

Wikipedia  Painting: Henry VIII Coat of Arms and Seal of Henry VIII of England; Catherine of Aragon as a young widow, by court painter Michael Sittow, 1502; Anne Boleyn, Henry's second queen; a later copy of an original painted 1534; Jane Seymour, Henry's third wife; Anne of Cleves, Henry's forth wife by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539; Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540; Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth and last wife.


April 30th, 1557

The very nature of Chile's topography made it one of the toughest parts of South America for the Spanish to conquer (Torres del Paine National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Torres del Paine) is a national park encompassing mountains, a glacier, a lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia)

1557 - Battle of Mataquito; Chile's independence movement - Mapuche leader Lautaro is killed by Spanish forces.

Wikipedia  Photo: The very nature of Chile's topography made it one of the toughest parts of South America for the Spanish to conquer (Torres del Paine National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Torres del Paine) is a national park encompassing mountains, a glacier, a lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia); Lautaro; The Mapuche were the original inhabitants of central and southern Chile; Chilean and Argentinean troops going to the Battle of Chacabuco (February 12, 1817) led by José de San Martín.


April 30th, 1803

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, Rembrandt Peale (1805). - Coronation of Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1806. Louisiana Territory purchased by the United States from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

1803 - Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
1812 - Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
1904 - The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Wikipedia  Image: Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, Rembrandt Peale (1805). - Coronation of Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1806. Louisiana Territory purchased by the United States from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.


April 30th, 1871

American Indians collage

American Indian Wars:
1871 - Camp Grant Massacre; takes place in Arizona Territory.

Wikipedia  Photos: American Indians - Chief Crazy Horse, Tashunca-uitco (1849 - 1877) ● Geronimo Apache Chief (1829 - 1909) ● Indian Chief 'Two Eagles'; Crow Indian Chief ● Snake Cheif ● Band of Chiricahua Apache Indians, followers of legendary renegade Geronimo, attending a peace negotiation after a long struggle against U.S. government attempts to force them onto reservations - Tombstone, Arizona (1886), Life Magazine ● American Horse - Oglala ● Native American Arapaho Indian ● Washakie, Shoshone leader ● Arapaho American Indian Chief.


April 30th, 1894

Panic of 1893: Coxey's Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment

Panic of 1893: Coxey's Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment.

Wikipedia  Photo: Coxey's Army marchers leaving their camp ● Followers of labor leader Jacob S. Coxey, known as Coxey's Army, on a march to Washington, D.C. in 1894 to protest the federal government's response to the economic depression of the 1890s.


April 30th, 1900

Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express

Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.

Wikipedia  Image: Casey Jones (The only known authentic photograph of Casey in the cab of an engine) ● "Casey" Jones depicted on a 3-cent postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service.


April 30th, 1900

Hawaiian Islands Chain Collage: Hawaiian Islands (Hawaiian: Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) from the island of Hawaiʻi in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll (the northwesternmost island in Hawaii is Green Island, which is joined to the Kure Atoll)

Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.

Wikipedia  Hawaiian Islands, NOAA Satellite; Na Pali Coast, Kaua'i, by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, National Geographic; Volcanic Coast, Haleakala National Park, by Paul Chesley, National Geographic; Living Earth - Pu'u 'O'o crater, by Frans Lanting; Volcano erupting on the Big Island in Hawaii in July by Alain Barbezat for National Geographic; The blue ocean line of Honolulu - an aerial view.
Hawaiian Islands (Hawaiian: Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) from the island of Hawaiʻi in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll (the northwesternmost island in Hawaii is Green Island, which is joined to the Kure Atoll).


April 30th, 1939

National Broadcasting Company (NBC) logo

NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N.Y. World's Fair opening day ceremonial address.

Wikipedia  Image: NBC Logos (The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has used several corporate logos over its history. The first logo was used in 1942 when the television network launched. Its most famous logo, the peacock, was first used in 1956).


April 30th, 1943

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1943 - 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.
1945 - Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.


April 30th, 1973

Watergate Scandal: was a political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement

Watergate Scandal:
1973 - United States President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.

Wikipedia  Photo: Watergate Scandal: was a political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement.
Watergate Complex Washington, DC, credit Watergate Notes; President Richard M. Nixon defended himself against many allegations, National Archives; Oliver F. Atkins' photo of Nixon leaving the White House shortly before his resignation became effective, August 9, 1974.


April 30th, 1975

Vietnam War: Operation Swift; U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley Vietnam War: Mobs of Vietnamese people scale the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, trying to get to the helicopter pickup zone, just before the end of the Vietnam War on April 29, 1975. Neal Ulevich, AP

Vietnam War:
1975 - Fall of Saigon; Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam president Duong Van Minh.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
● Mobs of Vietnamese people scale the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, trying to get to the helicopter pickup zone, just before the end of the Vietnam War on April 29, 1975. Neal Ulevich, AP.
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.


April 30th, 1977

The iconic Led Zeppelin logo

English rock group Led Zeppelin sets a new world record attendance for an indoor solo attraction at the Pontiac Silverdrome when 76,229 persons attend a concert here on the groups's 1977 North American tour.

Wikipedia  Photo: The iconic Led Zeppelin logo.


April 30th, 1993

Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet

The first-ever CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.

Wikipedia  Image: World Wide Web


April 30th, 2009

Chrysler Crossfire Concept Car ● Chrysler Crossfire 2012 Chrysler Jeep

Chrysler automobile company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Wikipedia  Photo: Chrysler Crossfire Concept Car ● Chrysler Crossfire 2012 Chrysler Jeep.


April 30th, 2014

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East and terrorist attacks:
2014 - Ürümqi attack; A bomb blast in Ürümqi killing three people and injuring 79 others.
2009 - Attack on the Dutch Royal Family; Seven people are killed and 17 injured at a Queen's Day parade in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)