Directory

1930 CE

The Salt March, led by Mahatma Gandhi, begins as nonviolent civil disobedience against the British salt monopoly, inspiring the Indian independence movement; the 1930 FIFA World Cup in Uruguay inaugurates the world’s premier international football tournament, with the host nation defeating Argentina; Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto at Lowell Observatory, expanding knowledge of the solar system; the Revolution of 1930 overthrows Brazilian President Washington Luís, bringing Getúlio Vargas to power; the 1930 Argentine coup d'état deposes President Hipólito Yrigoyen, starting the "Infamous Decade"; and the Musha Incident sees the Seediq people rise against Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, resulting in a brutal suppression.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 26 – The Indian National Congress declares this date as Independence Day, or as the day for Purna Swaraj (Complete Independence).source
  • March 2 – André Tardieu begins his second term as Prime Minister of France.source
  • March 28 – The government of Turkey requests the international community to adopt Istanbul and Ankara, as the official names for Constantinople and Angora. The U.S. State Department adopts the "Istanbul" form in May.source
  • March 29 – Heinrich Brüning is appointed Chancellor of Germany.source
  • April 22 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty to regulate submarine warfare and limit naval shipbuilding.source
  • May 16 – Rafael Trujillo is elected president of the Dominican Republic.source
  • June 7 – Carl Gustaf Ekman becomes Prime Minister of Sweden, for the second and final time.source
  • July 28 – R. B. Bennett defeats William Lyon Mackenzie King in federal elections and becomes the Prime Minister of Canada.source
  • August 7 – R. B. Bennett takes office as the eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.source
  • September 14 – 1930 German federal election: National Socialists win 107 seats in the German Parliament, the Reichstag (18.3% of all the votes), making them the second largest party.source
  • September 27 – İsmet İnönü forms a new government in Turkey (6th government).source
  • October 1 – British rule of Weihaiwei ends, as it is returned to China.source
  • October 27 – Ratifications are exchanged in London on the first London Naval Treaty signed in April, modifying the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Its arms limitation provisions go into effect immediately, hence putting more limits on the expensive naval arms race between its five signatories (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Empire of Japan, France and Italy.)source
  • October – The Indochinese Communist Party is formed.source
  • November 3 – Getúlio Vargas becomes president of Brazil.source
  • December 29 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the two-nation theory, outlining a vision for the creation of Pakistan.source
  • December – All adult Turkish women are given the right to vote in elections.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 10 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launch the Yên Bái mutiny in the hope of ending French colonial rule in Vietnam.source
  • March 2 – Mahatma Gandhi informs the British Viceroy of India that civil disobedience will begin the following week.source
  • April 18 – The Chittagong Rebellion begins in India with the Chittagong armoury raid.source
  • May 17 – French Prime Minister André Tardieu decides to withdraw the remaining French troops from the Rhineland (they depart by June 30).source
  • July 3–10 – The First Eastern Women's Congress takes place in Damascus in Syria.source
  • July 7 – The far-right Lapua Movement marches in Helsinki, Finland.source
  • August 12 – Turkish troops move into Persia to fight Kurdish insurgents.source
  • August 27 – A military junta takes over in Peru.source
  • September 6 – 1930 Argentine coup d'état: José Félix Uriburu carries out a military coup, overthrowing Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina.source
  • September 17 – The Kurdish Ararat rebellion is suppressed by the Turks.source
  • October 24 – Revolution of 1930: Getúlio Vargas overthrows Washington Luís.source

Religion & Belief

  • July 5 – The Seventh Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops opens. This conference approves the use of birth control in limited circumstances, a move away from the Christian views on birth control expressed by the Sixth Conference a decade earlier.source
  • September 20 – The Eastern Catholic Rite Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed.source
  • December 31 – The Papal encyclical Casti connubii, issued by Pope Pius XI, stresses the sanctity of marriage, prohibits Roman Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirms the Catholic prohibition on abortion.source

Economy & Finance

  • June 17 – President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law, implementing protectionist trade policies in the United States. It has the incidental effect of defining an antique as older than 1830.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 28 – The first patent for a field-effect transistor is granted in the United States, to Julius Edgar Lilienfeld.source
  • January 30 – Pavel Molchanov launches a radiosonde from Slutsk in the Soviet Union.source
  • April 21 – The Turkestan–Siberia Railway is completed.source
  • May 15 – Nurse Ellen Church becomes the world's first flight attendant, working on a Boeing Air Transport trimotor.source
  • July 7 – Building of the Boulder Dam (later known as the Hoover Dam) is started on the Colorado River, in the United States.source
  • September 8 – Scotch Tape, invented by Richard Gurley Drew, is sold by the 3M company in the United States for the first time.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on January 1, 2257, at .source
  • February 18 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence of Pluto, a celestial body considered a planet until redefined as a dwarf planet in 2006.source
  • April 17 – Neoprene is invented by DuPont.source
  • May 24 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).source
  • July 11 – Australian cricketer Don Bradman scores a world record 309 runs in one day, on his way to the highest individual Test innings of 334, during a Test match against England.source
  • July 29 – British airship R100 sets out for a successful 78-hour passage to Canada.source
  • December 24 – In London, inventor Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his device to project pictures on clouds.source
  • Bernhard Schmidt invents the Schmidt camera.source

Health & Medicine

  • March 31 – The Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) is instituted by the studios in the United States, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in films for the next 40 years.source
  • April 6 – In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks the salt laws of British India by making salt by the sea at the end of the Salt March.source
  • June 14 – The Federal Bureau of Narcotics is established under the United States Department of the Treasury, replacing the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.source
  • October 20 – The British Passfield white paper demands restrictions on Jewish immigration into Mandatory Palestine.source
  • November 25 – Cecil George Paine, a pathologist at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary in England, achieves the first recorded cure (of an eye infection) using penicillin.source

Crime & Justice

  • April 11 – Anglo-Indian hunter Jim Corbett shot the second of the man-eating tigers of Chowgarh.source
  • October 14 – Ståhlberg kidnapping: The former and first President of Finland, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, and his wife, Ester Ståhlberg, are kidnapped from their home by members of the far-right Lapua Movement but released unharmed.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • April 21 – A fire in the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, United States kills 320 people.source
  • October 5 – British airship R101, the world's largest flying craft, crashes in France en route to India, on its first overseas flight, resulting in the loss of 48 lives, with six survivors. Those killed include Britain's Air Minister, Christopher Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson.source

Climate & Environment

  • March 6 – The first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye go on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.source
  • May 6 – The 7.1 Salmas earthquake shakes northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent); up to 3,000 people are killed.source
  • August – The volcanic island of Anak Krakatau begins to form permanently in the Sunda Strait.source
  • September 3 – The huge 1930 San Zenón hurricane in the Caribbean demolishes most of the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.source
  • November 25 – An earthquake in the Izu Peninsula of Japan kills 223 people and destroys 650 buildings.source
  • December 19 – Mount Merapi volcano in central Java, Indonesia, erupts, destroying numerous villages and killing 1,300 people.source

Culture & Society

  • March 6 – International Unemployment Day is observed in countries throughout the world.source
  • March 12 – Mahatma Gandhi sets off on a 200-mile march towards the sea with 78 followers to protest against the British monopoly on salt in India; more will join them during the Salt March that ends on April 5.source
  • April 6 – The International Left Opposition (ILO) is founded in Paris, France.source
  • April 19 - Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) foundedsource
  • May 10 – The National Pan-Hellenic Council is founded in Washington, D.C.source
  • July 4 – The dedication of George Washington's sculpted head is held at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.source
  • July 13 – The inaugural FIFA World Cup begins: Lucien Laurent scores the first goal, for France against Mexico.source
  • July 19 – Georges Simenon's detective character Inspector Jules Maigret makes his first appearance in print under Simenon's own name, when the novel Pietr-le-Letton (known in English as The Strange Case of Peter the Lett) begins serialization in a French weekly magazine.source
  • July 30 – Uruguay beats Argentina 4–2 to win the first FIFA World Cup final in Association football, at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo.source
  • August 9 – The cartoon character Betty Boop debut in the Fleischer Studios short film Dizzy Dishes.source
  • August 16 – The first British Empire Games open in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.source
  • October 3 – The German Socialist Labour Party in Poland – Left is founded, following a split in the DSAP in Łódź.source
  • November 2 – Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.source

Births

  • January 12 – Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player, co-founder of Tim Hortons fast food chain (d. 1974)source
  • January 20 – Buzz Aldrin, American pilot, astronaut (Apollo 11), second person to set foot on the Moonsource
  • January 23 – Derek Walcott, West Indian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2017)source
  • March 26 – Sandra Day O'Connor, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 2023)source
  • March 30 – Rolf Harris, Australian entertainer and convicted sex offender (d. 2023)source
  • April 3 – Lawton Chiles, American politician, U.S. Senator (Florida), 41st Governor of Florida (d. 1998)source
  • April 28 – James Baker, former United States Secretary of State and United States Secretary of the Treasurysource
  • May 13 – Mike Gravel, American politician, former Senator of Alaska and Presidential candidate (d. 2021)source
  • June 27 – Ross Perot, American business magnate, billionaire, politician, and philanthropist (d. 2019)source
  • July 7 – Theodore McCarrick, American Roman Catholic former cardinal (d. 2025)source
  • July 15 – Jacques Derrida, Algerian-born French literary critic (d. 2004)source
  • August 5 – Neil Armstrong, American astronaut, first human to set foot on the Moon, commander of Apollo 11 (d. 2012)source
  • October 10 – Harold Pinter, English playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)source
  • December 2 – Gary Becker, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)source

Deaths

  • January 19 – Frank Ramsey, British philosopher, mathematician and economist (b. 1903)source
  • February 26 – Rafael Merry del Val, British-born Spanish Roman Catholic cardinal and Servant of God (b. 1865)source
  • March 16 – Miguel Primo de Rivera, Spanish military officer, Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1870)source
  • March 19 – Arthur Balfour, British politician and statesman, 48th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1848)source
  • April 1 – Cosima Wagner, wife and inspiration of Richard Wagner (b. 1837)source
  • May 13 – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1861)source
  • May 25 – Randall Davidson, English clergyman, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1848)source
  • July 8 – Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1856)source
  • October 28 – Mary Harrison McKee, de facto First Lady of the United States (b. 1858)source
  • November 5 – Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician, pathologist, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1858)source
  • November 20 – Sir Neville Howse, Australian politician and recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1863)source
  • November 30 – Mary Harris Jones, Irish-born American labor leader (b. 1837)source
  • November – Alfred Wegener, German geophysicist, meteorologist (b. 1880)source
  • December 9 – Andrew "Rube" Foster, American Negro league baseball player (b. 1879)source