September 30

420 The Roman priest, theologian and historian Saint Jerome died near Bethlehem on September 30, 420. His remains, originally buried at Bethlehem, were later said to have been transferred to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, though other places in the West claim some relics. Jerome's feast day is September 30th. He is recognized as the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists.

Saint Jerome by Matthias Stom

1608 Anne Burras was the maid to Mrs. Thomas Forrest. She arrived in Jamestown aged 14, on September 30, 1608 on the Mary and Margaret, the ship bringing the Second Supply to the colony. When she married John Laydon in late 1608 in Jamestown, Virginia, it was the first ever Christian marriage in the American colonies. Their daughter Virginia Laydon was the first child of English colonists to be born in the Jamestown colony.

1791 Wolfgang Mozart's friend Emanuel Schikeneder commissioned The Magic Flute in May 1791 at a time when the Austrian composer could scarcely afford to refuse any work. The piece was designed to revive the flagging theater of which Schikeneder was director, the theatre auf der Wieden in Vienna. Mozart conducted at the premiere at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden on September 30. 1791.

1846 In the mid 1840s a Boston dentist called William Morton (1819-68), at the suggestion of his landlord Professor Charles Jackson, started to experiment with using ether to anesthetize a patient before extracting a tooth. After trial runs on himself, his dog and a goldfish, Morton painlessly extracted a tooth from a patient after administering ether on September 30, 1846.

1847 Britain's Bible Christian Church, took the lead in establishing the world's first national Vegetarian Society. A meeting was held on September 30, 1847, at Northwood Villa, home of the Hydropathic Institute in Ramsgate, England. The name 'Vegetarian Society' was chosen for the new organization by a unanimous vote.

Interior of Northwood Villa, where the Vegetarian Society was founded in 1847.

1882 The Vulcan Street Plant, the first hydroelectric central station to supply electricity to private and commercial customers in North America, was put into operation on September 30, 1882 in Appleton, Wisconsin. The first buildings to be lit by the plant were the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company building, the Vulcan Paper Mill  and the home of H.J. Rogers, who was the president of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Co at the time.

1911 SMS Moltke was the lead ship of the Moltke-class battlecruisers of the German Imperial Navy. Commissioned on September 30. 1911, the ship participated in most of the major fleet actions conducted by the German Navy during the First World War, including the Battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland in the North Sea, and the Battle of the Gulf of Riga and Operation Albion in the Baltic.

1927 Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season on September 30, 1927 against the Senators. In the eighth inning off Tom Zachary he hit his 60th homer to break a 2–2 tie. The record was broken by Roger Maris in 1961 when he hit his 61st home run.

1928 On September 30, 1928, the Irish actress Peggy O'Neil agreed to be "televised" as part of a demonstration of John Logie Baird's television system at the National Radio Exhibition outside London. For 30 minutes she told stories and sang the song "I'm a Little Bit Fonder of You." A couple years later, in 1930, she gave the first live broadcast interview at the Ideal Home Exhibition in Southampton.

1935 Construction of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River along the Arizona–Nevada border begun on July 7, 1930. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest man-made structures in the world. It was dedicated on September 30, 1935.

1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was determined to pursue a policy of appeasing Nazi Germany. When Adolf Hitler invaded Austria and the Sudetenland (a part of Czechoslovakia), Chamberlain  flew to Munich to speak with the German Fuhrer. Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938, allowing Germany to occupy Sudetenland
Chamberlain's policy of appeasement toward Hitler failed to prevent the outbreak of World War II a year later.

Chamberlain arrives in Munich, September 1938. By Bundesarchiv

1955 24-year-old actor James Dean had a fondness for auto racing and purchased the 1955 Porsche Spyder sports car, one of only 90 made of that year model, planning to participate in the upcoming races in Salinas, California. On September 30, 1955, driving his Porsche Spyder, Dean collided with another car in Cholame, California and was killed. He had received a speeding ticket just two hours and fifteen minutes before.

1960 The Flintstones was broadcast from September 30, 1960, to April 1, 1966, on ABC. It was the first thirty-minute cartoon to be aired during prime time. The six seasons that The Flintstones held the record for the longest-running primetime animated TV series until the seventh season of The Simpsons in 1997.

1965 The 30 September Movement attempted a coup against the Indonesian government on September 30, 1965. The rebellion was crushed by the military under Suharto and led to a mass anti-communist purge, with over 500,000 people killed. The US played a significant role in the killings, supplying economic, technical and military aid to the Indonesian military when the killings began and providing "kill lists."

1966 The Bechuanaland Protectorate was a protectorate established in 1885, by the United Kingdom in Southern Africa. The British protectorate of Bechuanaland declared its independence on September 30, 1966, and became the Republic of Botswana. Seretse Khama took office as the first president. The country's name means "Land of the Tswana", referring to the dominant ethnic group in Botswana.

1967 On September 30, 1967, the BBC underwent a major reorganization of its radio programming. The existing services, known as the BBC Light Programme, the Third Programme, and the Home Service, were replaced with new stations: BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4 respectively. BBC Radio 1 was launched on that day and was aimed at a younger audience, primarily focusing on popular music. Tony Blackburn presented the first show.

1967 The first Boeing 747 was rolled out of the custom-built Everett Factory on September 30, 1968. With a floor area of 398,000 m2 (4,280,000 sq ft), the Boeing Everett Factory in Everett, Washington, is the largest building in the world by volume. 

1975 The AH-64 Apache, the primary attack helicopter for a number of countries, made its first flight. on September 30, 1975. The Apache originally started as the Model 77 developed by Hughes Helicopters for the United States Army's Advanced Attack Helicopter program to replace the AH-1 Cobra.

1975 The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published controversial editorial cartoons depicting Muhammad on September 30, 1975. They sparked protests across the Muslim world by many who viewed them as Islamophobic and blasphemous.

1978 Meryl Streep married sculptor Don Gummer in the garden of her parent's home on September 30, 1978. They have four children, son Henry Wolf Gummer and daughters Mary Willa Gummer, Grace Jane Gummer and Louisa Jacobson Gummer.

1985 Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on September 30, 1985, and then ported it to Windows two years later. 

1987 On September 30 1987, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 32-year-old Susan Lazarchick had the world’s first successful transplant of the human body’s most complex joint — the knee. The complex operation was done to save the leg of Ms Lazarchick who had developed a potentially malignant tumor on her knee.

2019 Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber briefly dated model Hailey Baldwin in the winter of 2015-2016 before splitting. They reconciled two-and-a-half years later and married in the fall of 2018. The Biebers had a second ceremony in Bluffton, South Carolina on September 30, 2019.