Previous Day - Next Day
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe
Wikiquote (Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. image: Juarez Ricci)
May 30th, 70
Roman Empire:
70 - Siege of Jerusalem; Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of the Jewish capital Jerusalem. The Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometers.
Wikipedia Photo: ● 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.
Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
May 30th, 1416
Council of Constance, called by the Emperor Sigismund, a supporter of antipope John XXIII, burns Jerome of Prague following a trial for heresy.
Wikipedia.org Image: Fresco painting of the Resurrection Chora Church, Istanbul, Turkey.
May 30th, 1431
Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc:
1431 - In Rouen, France, 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal. Because of this the Catholic Church remember this day as the celebration of Saint Joan of Arc.
Wikipedia Painting: Joan of Arc: An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (1485); Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); Jeanne d' Arc, by Eugene Thirion (1876); Joan at the coronation of Charles VII, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in (1854); Joan of Arc and Prophet-French Pilgrimage; Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester, by Hippolyte Delaroche, (1824); Saint Joan of Arc, Vatican City; Joan of Arc in Battle, by Hermann Anton Stilke.
May 30th, 1536
Henry VIII of England married his 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, 11 days after he had his 2nd wife, Anne Boleyn executed.
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.
May 30th, 1588
Anglo-Spanish War:
1588 - The last ship of the Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel.
Wikipedia Painting: The Spanish Armada - Battle of Gravelines; credit ● National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK ● National Maritime Museum, BBC.
May 30th, 1635
Thirty Years' War:
1635 - Peace of Prague (1635) is signed.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), The victory of Gustavus Adolphus; Bautzen circa 1620, by Matthäus Merian; Battle of Lützen by Carl Wahlbom shows the death of King Gustavus Adolphus on 16 November 1632; Bautzen 1620, by Matthäus Merian; Peace of Westphalia, Ratification of the Peace of Münster.
May 30th, 1642
English Civil War:
1642 - From this date all honors granted by Charles I are retrospectively annulled by Parliament.
Wikipedia Painting: English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers);
John Milton publishes Areopagitica;
Battle of Naseby, victory of the Parliamentarian New Model Army;
Battle of Marston Moor, 1644;
"Cromwell at Dunbar", by Andrew Carrick Gow; Oliver Cromwell; King Charles I, painted by Van Dyck;
"And when did you last see your father?" by William Frederick Yeames.
May 30th, 1806
Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.
Wikipedia Painting: United States President Andrew Jackson Portrait of Jackson by Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl.
May 30th, 1814
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1814 - War of the Sixth Coalition; Treaty of Paris (1814) is signed returning French borders to their 1792 extent. Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled to Elba.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
May 30th, 1883
In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede that crushes twelve people.
Wikipedia Picture: Brooklyn Bridge is a bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States (Brooklyn Bridge fisheye, looking towards Manhattan. New York City), credit Sayed Dhansay, Flickr.
May 30th 1911
Indianapolis Motor Speedway: First Indianapolis 500 takes place.
Wikipedia Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Formula One.
May 30th, 1922
1922 - In Washington, D.C. the Lincoln Memorial is dedicated.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
May 30th, 1925
World War II:
1925 - May Thirtieth Movement; Shanghai Municipal Police Force shoot 13 protesting workers to death.
1937 - Memorial Day massacre; Chicago police shoot and kill 10 labor demonstrators.
World War II:
1941 - Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb on the Athenian Acropolis, tear down the Nazi swastika.
1942 - 1000 British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.
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.
May 30th, 1958
Memorial Day: the remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
Arlington Cemetery / Wikipedia.org Photo: Arlington National Cemetery: The Nation's Cemetery. No land in America is more sacred than the square mile of Arlington National Cemetery. National Geographic
May 30th, 1971
Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 9 s launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
Wikipedia Image: Mariner 10 - Mercury, NASA.
May 30th, 1989
1989 - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The 33-foot high "Goddess of Democracy" statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
Wikipedia Photo: Tiananmen incident April 5th, 1976 (The incident occurred on the traditional day of mourning, and removal of the displays of mourning - The Gang of Four, ordered the Square to be cleared) ● Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; The “Unknown Rebel”, taken by Jeff Widener, 1989 ● A month before the crackdown, momentum was already gathering as thousands of students swarmed in the square on May 4, 1989 to call for greater freedom of speech and democracy, credit Peter Turley, Corbis.
May 30th, 1998
Earthquake:
1998 - A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
May 30th, 1998
Pakistan conducts an underground nuclear test in the Kharan Desert. (It is reported to be a plutonium device with yield of 20kt.)
Wikipedia Photo: Pakistan builds low yield nuclear capability; This still image from a Pakistan military handout video shows a Hatf IX (NASR) missile being fired during a test at an undisclosed location in Pakistan April 19, 2011. credit Reuters ● Rizwan Tabassum, AFP / Getty Images ● AP.
May 30th, 2003
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2003 - Depayin massacre; at least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy are killed by government-sponsored mob in Burma.
1972 - In Tel Aviv Israel members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport Massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others.
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)