October 30

637 The ancient Greco-Roman city of Antioch surrendered to the Muslim forces under Rashidun Caliphate after the Battle of the Iron Bridge on October 30, 637. The battle took its name from a nearby nine-arch stone bridge spanning the Orontes River which had gates trimmed with iron.

1270 King Louis IX landed in Tunis for the Eighth Crusade in 1270 but the saintly French king almost immediately caught the plague and he died soon after. Little was achieved and the Siege of Tunis was abandoned on October 30, 1270 following an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX) and the sultan of Tunis.

Death of Louis IX during the siege of Tunis

1501 Cesare Borgia was an illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and member of the Spanish-Aragonese House of Borgia. He served as mercenary leader for the King of France Louis XII and occupied Milan and Naples during the Italian Wars. Highly intelligent, but morally corrupt, The Banquet of Chestnuts was a supper held by Cesare Borgia in the Papal Palace on October 30, 1501 where fifty prostitutes were in attendance for the entertainment of the guests.

1735 John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 in Braintree, Massachusetts (now Quincy, Massachusetts). His father, John Adams Sr, worked as a farmer and cobbler and his mother came from a prominent family of scientists and medical doctors. The second president of the United States, from 1797 to 1801, Adams was the only president elected under the banner of the Federalist Party. The main accomplishment of his presidency was a peaceful resolution of the undeclared naval war with France. 

1811 Jane Austen's first successful novel Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously (it was attributed to " Lady") on October 30, 1811. She had to pay to have it published, but her investment paid off; by the middle of 1813, the novel had sold out its first print run of 750 copies. Sense and Sensibility then had a second print run later that year, making Austen a total profit of £140. Only after Jane Austen's death did her brother reveal her name to the public.  

Title page from the original 1811 edition

1888 The first patent for a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, 1888, to American inventor John J. Loud, who was attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write "on rough surfaces-such as wood, coarse wrapping-paper, and other articles." His invention was not commercialized and the patent eventually lapsed.

1905 In January 1905 the Russian Bloody Sunday occurred when hundreds of unarmed peasants were shot down by imperial guards as they marched to petition Nicholas II at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Under pressure from the attempted 1905 Russian Revolution, Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto on October 30, 1905 granting civil rights to all and promising a Duma of parliament with full legislative powers.

1912 In  January 1912 the 53-year-old founder of the Boy Scout movement Robert Baden-Powell met 23-year-old Olave St Clair Soames on the ocean liner, Arcadian. It was heading for New York to start one of his Scouting World Tours. Their relationship caused a media sensation due to Baden-Powell's fame. To avoid press intrusion, they married in secret on October 30, 1912  at St Peter's Church in Parkstone. The Scouts of England each donated a penny to buy Baden-Powell a wedding gift, a car.

1918 Slovakia was settled in the 5th to 6th centuries by Slavs and it was occupied by the Magyars in the 10th century becoming part of a kingdom of Hungary. The Martin Declaration of October 30, 1918 marked Slovakia's exit from the Kingdom of Hungary and the start of its union with the newly-created Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce in 1992, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

1936 Marjorie Gestring won the gold medal in 3-meter springboard diving at the Summer Olympics in Berlin on October 30, 1936. She was aged 13 years and 268 days at the time, making her the youngest Olympic athlete ever to win a gold medal. She remains the second-youngest Olympic gold medalist of all time, after Dimitrios Loundras, who was 10 years and 218 days old when he won a bronze medal in team gymnastics at the 1896 Summer Olympics.

1938 Actor Orson Welles stirred a national panic on October 30, 1938 with his radio drama The War of the Worlds based on H.G. Wells' novel. Listeners believed the "simulated" news bulletins in the broadcast were real and that Grovers Mill, New Jersey, actually was being invaded by men from Mars.Two people had heart attacks and many others were treated for shock.

1944 A tip from a Dutch informer led the Gestapo to Anne Frank and her family's hiding place  and they were transported to to the Dutch Westerbork concentration camp. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on October 30, 1944, where they died (probably of typhus) in March 1945.

1945 Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signed a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers on October 30, 1945 to break the baseball color barrier. Robinson had an exceptional 10-year baseball career. He was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first African American player so honored.

1960 The first successful kidney transplants between living patients were undertaken was performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston in December 1954. The first successful kidney transplantation in the United Kingdom occurred six years later on October 30, 1960, when Michael Woodruff performed one between identical twins at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

1961 The Soviet Union detonated the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba 4000 m (13,100 ft) above the Sukhoy Nos ("Dry Nose") cape of Severny Island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. At 50 megatons of yield, it remains the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.

1963 Ferrucio Lamborghini founded Lamborghini because he wanted to build a good touring car to compete against the cars of such makers as Ferrari. In 1963 Lamborghini started with the production of their first car for sale, the 350 GT. A two-door coupé with two seats, it had a V12 engine in the front of the car. It made its world debut on October 30, 1963 at the Turin Auto Show and was made until 1967.

1973 The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, was completed on October 30, 1973 connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus. The cost of the bridge was US$200 million. Upon the bridge's opening, much was made of its being the first bridge between Europe and Asia since the pontoon bridge of Xerxes in 480 BC.

1974 The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman took place in Kinshasa, Zaire on October 30, 1974 (October 29th Zaire Time.) Ali regained the world heavyweight title with an eighth-round knockout of Foreman.

2004 An estimated three million people attended a parade in Boston, celebrating the Boston Red Sox's 2004 World Series victory on October 30, 2004. The victory ended an 86-year drought of World Series championships and ended the era of the famous Curse of the Bambino for the Red Sox.

2011 Lithuania ranked first as of October 30, 2011 in the world by the internet upload speed and download speed. The high speeds were largely due to the fact that Lithuania has Europe's most available FTTH network. According to a study published by the FTTH Council Europe, by 2013 the country had connected 100% of households to the FTTH network.