On This Day — 30 March

2023

Donald Trump becomes the first former United States president to be indicted by a grand jury.

Donald Trump

2019

Pope Francis visits Morocco.

Pope Francis

2018

The Israeli Army kills 17 Palestinians and wounds 1,400 in Gaza during Land Day protests.

Israel Defense Forces

2017

SpaceX conducts the world's first reflight of an orbital class rocket.

SpaceX

2011

Min Aung Hlaing is appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar's armed forces.

Min Aung Hlaing

2009

Twelve gunmen attack the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan.

2009 Lahore police academy attack

2008

Drolma Kyi arrested by Chinese authorities.

Drolma Kyi

2006

Cyclone Glenda, one of the strongest tropical cyclones in the Australian region makes landfall near Onslow, Western Australia.

Cyclone Glenda

2002

The 2002 Lyon car attack takes place.

2002 Lyon synagogue attack

1982

Space Shuttle program: STS-3 mission is completed with the landing of Columbia at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

Space Shuttle program

1981

U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.; three others are wounded in the same incident.

Ronald Reagan

1979

Airey Neave, a British Member of Parliament (MP), is killed by a car bomb as he exits the Palace of Westminster. The Irish National Liberation Army claims responsibility.

Airey Neave

1976

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: in the first organized response against Israeli policies by a Palestinian collective since 1948, Palestinians create the first Land Day.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

1972

Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam.

Easter Offensive

1967

Delta Air Lines Flight 9877 crashes at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, killing 19.

Delta Air Lines Flight 9877

1965

Vietnam War: A car bomb explodes in front of the United States Embassy, Saigon, killing 22 and wounding 183 others.

Vietnam War

1961

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed in New York City.

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs

1959

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.

14th Dalai Lama

1949

Cold War: A riot breaks out in Austurvöllur square in Reykjavík, when Iceland joins NATO.

Cold War

1945

World War II: Soviet forces invade Austria and capture Vienna. Polish and Soviet forces liberate Danzig.

Red Army

1944

World War II: Allied bombers conduct their most severe bombing run on Sofia, Bulgaria.

World War II

1944

World War II: In a raid on Nuremberg, RAF Bomber Command suffers its greatest loss of the war, losing 95 bombers from a force of 795.

Bombing of Nuremberg in World War II

1940

Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan declares Nanking capital of a new Chinese puppet government, nominally controlled by Wang Jingwei.

Second Sino-Japanese War

1939

The Heinkel He 100 fighter sets a world airspeed record of 463 mph (745 km/h).

Heinkel He 100

1918

Beginning of the bloody March Events in Baku and other locations of Baku Governorate.

March Days

1912

Sultan Abd al-Hafid signs the Treaty of Fez, making Morocco a French protectorate.

List of rulers of Morocco

1900

Archaeologists in Knossos, Crete, discover the first clay tablet with hieroglyphic writing in a script later called Linear B.

Archaeology

1899

German Society of Chemistry issues an invitation to other national scientific organizations to appoint delegates to the International Committee on Atomic Weights.

Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights

1885

The Battle for Kushka triggers the Panjdeh Incident which nearly gives rise to war between the Russian and British Empires.

Panjdeh incident

1870

Texas is readmitted to the United States Congress following Reconstruction.

Texas

1867

Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about two cents/acre ($4.19/km2), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.

Alaska

1863

Danish prince Wilhelm Georg is chosen as King George of Greece.

George I of Greece

1861

Discovery of the chemical elements: Sir William Crookes announces his discovery of thallium.

Timeline of chemical element discoveries

1856

The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War.

Treaty of Paris (1856)

1855

Origins of the American Civil War: "Border Ruffians" from Missouri invade Kansas and force election of a pro-slavery legislature.

Origins of the American Civil War

1844

One of the most important battles of the Dominican War of Independence from Haiti takes place near the city of Santiago de los Caballeros.

Battle of Santiago (1844)

1842

Ether anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by the American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long.

Diethyl ether

1841

The National Bank of Greece is founded in Athens.

National Bank of Greece

1822

The Florida Territory is created in the United States.

Florida Territory

1818

Physicist Augustin Fresnel reads a memoir on optical rotation to the French Academy of Sciences, reporting that when polarized light is "depolarized" by a Fresnel rhomb, its properties are preserved in any subsequent passage through an optically-rotating crystal or liquid.

Augustin-Jean Fresnel

1815

Joachim Murat issues the Rimini Proclamation, among the earliest calls for Italian unification.

Joachim Murat

1699

Guru Gobind Singh establishes the Khalsa in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab.

Guru Gobind Singh

1296

Edward I sacks Berwick-upon-Tweed, during armed conflict between Scotland and England.

Edward I

1282

The people of Sicily rebel against the Angevin king Charles I, in what becomes known as the Sicilian Vespers.

Sicily

598

Avar–Byzantine wars: The Avars lift the siege at the Byzantine stronghold of Tomis. Their leader Bayan I retreats north of the Danube River after the Avaro-Slavic army is decimated by the plague.

Maurice's Balkan campaigns