Today in History: April 30, Adolf Hitler takes his own life
Today in History: April 30, Adolf Hitler takes his own life
The subway rush hour is brought to a standstill in New York City, May 1, 1945 as the report of Hitler’s death was received. (AP Photo)
Monica Seles sits on the ground as she is aided by two helpers, bottom, while others grab a man, unseen behind Seles, who leaned out of the stands at the Hamburg tennis tournament on April 30, 1993 and stabbed the world?s top-ranked tennis player when she sat taking a break. Seles was taken to hospital but police said her life was not in danger. (AP Photo)
Victorious North Vietnamese troops on tanks take up positions outside Independence Palace in Saigon, April 30, 1975, the day the South Vietnamese government surrendered, ending the Vietnam War. Communist flags fly from the palace and the tank. (AP Photo/Yves Billy)
The subway rush hour is brought to a standstill in New York City, May 1, 1945 as the report of Hitler’s death was received. (AP Photo)
The subway rush hour is brought to a standstill in New York City, May 1, 1945 as the report of Hitler’s death was received. (AP Photo)
Monica Seles sits on the ground as she is aided by two helpers, bottom, while others grab a man, unseen behind Seles, who leaned out of the stands at the Hamburg tennis tournament on April 30, 1993 and stabbed the world?s top-ranked tennis player when she sat taking a break. Seles was taken to hospital but police said her life was not in danger. (AP Photo)
Monica Seles sits on the ground as she is aided by two helpers, bottom, while others grab a man, unseen behind Seles, who leaned out of the stands at the Hamburg tennis tournament on April 30, 1993 and stabbed the world?s top-ranked tennis player when she sat taking a break. Seles was taken to hospital but police said her life was not in danger. (AP Photo)
Victorious North Vietnamese troops on tanks take up positions outside Independence Palace in Saigon, April 30, 1975, the day the South Vietnamese government surrendered, ending the Vietnam War. Communist flags fly from the palace and the tank. (AP Photo/Yves Billy)
Victorious North Vietnamese troops on tanks take up positions outside Independence Palace in Saigon, April 30, 1975, the day the South Vietnamese government surrendered, ending the Vietnam War. Communist flags fly from the palace and the tank. (AP Photo/Yves Billy)
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 30, 1945, as Soviet troops approached his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler took his own life along with that of his wife of one day, Eva Braun.
On this date:
In 1789, George Washington took the oath of office in New York as the first president of the United States.
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for 60 million francs, the equivalent of about $15 million.
In 1812, Louisiana became the 18th state of the Union.
In 1900, engineer John Luther “Casey” Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad died in a train wreck near Vaughan, Mississippi, after staying at the controls in a successful effort to save the passengers.
In 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed a resolution officially confirming the name of Hoover Dam, which had also come to be known as “Boulder Dam.”
In 1958, Britain’s Life Peerages Act 1958 allowed women to become members of the House of Lords.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon announced the U.S. was sending troops into Cambodia, an action that sparked widespread protest.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon announced the resignations of top aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst and White House counsel John Dean, who was actually fired.
In 1975, the Vietnam War ended as the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces.
In 1983, blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters died in Westmont, Illinois, at age 68.
In 1993, top-ranked women’s tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a match in Hamburg, Germany, by a man who described himself as a fan of second-ranked German player Steffi Graf. (The man, convicted of causing grievous bodily harm, was given a suspended sentence.)
In 2004, Arabs expressed outrage at graphic photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by U.S. military police; President George W. Bush condemned the mistreatment of prisoners, saying “that’s not the way we do things in America.”
In 2012, President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda (yoh-shih-HEE’-koh NOH’-duh), meeting at the White House, decried aggressive acts from North Korea, including a recent failed rocket launch, and vowed to maintain a unified front against such provocations. A ferry carrying more than 300 people capsized in a river in northeast India, killing some 100 people and leaving about as many missing.
In 2017, President Donald Trump said after North Korea’s latest failed rocket launch that communist leader Kim Jong Un would eventually develop better missiles, and that “we can’t allow it to happen”; in a taped interview broadcast on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” the president would not discuss the possibility of military action.
In 2021, the Transportation Security Administration said it was keeping in place a requirement that people wear masks on planes and all other forms of public transit because of COVID-19. Disneyland in Southern California reopened its gates after a 13-month closure caused by the coronavirus; capacity was limited for the reopening, and only California residents were allowed in. A stampede at a religious festival in northern Israel left 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews dead and about 150 others injured.
In 2022, Ukrainian forces fought village by village to hold back a Russian advance through the country’s east, while the United Nations worked to broker an evacuation of the approximately 100,000 civilians remaining in the last Ukrainian stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the port city of Mariupol. A tornado barreled through parts of Kansas, damaging multiple buildings, injuring several people and leaving more than 6,500 without power. Naomi Judd, the Kentucky-born singer of the Grammy-winning duo The Judds and mother of Wynonna and Ashley Judd, died at age 76.