30 August

Events

Pre-1600

* 70 – Titus ends the siege of Jerusalem after destroying Herod's Temple.
*1282 – Peter III of Aragon lands at Trapani to intervene in the War of the Sicilian Vespers.
*1363 – The five-week Battle of Lake Poyang begins, in which the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders (Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang) meet to decide who will supplant the Yuan dynasty.
* 1464 – Pope Paul II succeeds Pope Pius II as the 211th pope.
* 1574 – Guru Ram Das becomes the Fourth Sikh Guru/Master.
*1590 – Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle. (Traditional Japanese date: August 1, 1590)
*1594 – King James VI of Scotland holds a masque at the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle.

1601–1900

* 1721 – The Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia ends in the Treaty of Nystad.
*1727 – Anne, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, is given the title Princess Royal.
*1757 – Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf: Russian force under Field Marshal Stepan Fyodorovich Apraksin beats a smaller Prussian force commanded by Field Marshal Hans von Lehwaldt, during the Seven Years' War.
*1791 – sinks after having run aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef the previous day.
* 1799 – The entire Dutch fleet is captured by British forces under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Charles Mitchell during the War of the Second Coalition.
* 1800 – Gabriel Prosser postpones a planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia, but is arrested before he can make it happen.
* 1813 – First Battle of Kulm: French forces are defeated by an Austrian-Prussian-Russian alliance.
* 1813 – Creek War: Fort Mims massacre: Creek "Red Sticks" kill over 500 settlers (including over 250 armed militia) in Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Alabama.
*1835 – Australia: Melbourne, Victoria is founded.
* 1836 – The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen.
*1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Richmond: Confederates under Edmund Kirby Smith rout Union forces under General William "Bull" Nelson.
* 1873 – Austrian explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht discover the archipelago of Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Sea.
* 1896 – Philippine Revolution: After Spanish victory in the Battle of San Juan del Monte, eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.

1901–present

*1909 – Burgess Shale fossils are discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.
*1914 – World War I: Germans defeat the Russians in the Battle of Tannenberg.
*1916 – Ernest Shackleton completes the rescue of all of his men stranded on Elephant Island in Antarctica.
* 1917 – Vietnamese prison guards led by Trịnh Văn Cấn mutiny at the Thái Nguyên penitentiary against local French authority.
*1918 – Fanni Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, which along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror.
*1922 – Battle of Dumlupınar: The final battle in the Greco-Turkish War ("Turkish War of Independence").
*1936 – The RMS ''Queen Mary'' wins the Blue Riband by setting the fastest transatlantic crossing.
* 1940 – The Second Vienna Award reassigns the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.
*1941 – The Tighina Agreement, a treaty regarding administration issues of the Transnistria Governorate, is signed between Germany and Romania.
*1942 – World War II: The Battle of Alam el Halfa begins.
*1945 – The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong comes to an end.
* 1945 – The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Douglas MacArthur lands at Atsugi Air Force Base.
* 1945 – The Allied Control Council, governing Germany after World War II, comes into being.
*1959 – South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Dan was elected to the National Assembly despite soldiers being bussed in to vote for President Ngo Dinh Diem's candidate.
*1962 – Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.
*1963 – The Moscow–Washington hotline between the leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union goes into operation.
*1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
*1974 – A Belgrade–Dortmund express train derails at the main train station in Zagreb killing 153 passengers.
* 1974 – A powerful bomb explodes at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Marunouchi, Tokyo. Eight are killed, 378 are injured. Eight left-wing activists are arrested on May 19, 1975, by Japanese authorities.
* 1974 – The Third World Population Conference ends in Bucharest, Romania. At the end of the ceremony, the UN-Romanian Demographic Centre is inaugurated.
* 1981 – President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar of Iran are assassinated in a bombing committed by the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
*1983 – Aeroflot Flight 5463 crashes into Dolan Mountain while approaching Almaty International Airport in present-day Kazakhstan, killing all 90 people on board.
*1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' takes off on its maiden voyage.
*1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Azerbaijan declares independence from Soviet Union.
*1992 – The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ends with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities.
*1995 – Bosnian War: NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
*1998 – Second Congo War: Armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and their Angolan and Zimbabwean allies recapture Matadi and the Inga dams in the western DRC from RCD and Rwandan troops.
*2002 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4823 crashes on approach to Rio Branco International Airport, killing 23 of the 31 people on board.
*2008 – A Conviasa Boeing 737 crashes into Illiniza Volcano in Ecuador, killing all three people on board.
*2014 – Prime Minister of Lesotho Tom Thabane flees to South Africa as the army allegedly stages a coup.
*2019 – A huge accident during the 2019 F2 Spa Feature Race caused young driver Anthoine Hubert to die after sustaining major injuries.
*2021 – The last remaining American troops leave Afghanistan, ending U.S. involvement in the war.

Births

Pre-1600

* 1334 – Peter of Castile (d. 1369)
* 1574 – Albert Szenczi Molnár, Hungarian writer and translator (d. 1634)

1601–1900

*1609 – Sir Alexander Carew, 2nd Baronet, English politician (d. 1644)
* 1609 – Artus Quellinus the Elder, Flemish sculptor (d. 1668)
* 1627 – Itō Jinsai, Japanese philosopher (d. 1705)
* 1716 – Capability Brown, English landscape architect (d. 1783)
* 1720 – Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician, founded Whitbread (d. 1796)
*1748 – Jacques-Louis David, French painter and illustrator (d. 1825)
*1768 – Joseph Dennie, American author and journalist (d. 1812)
*1797 – Mary Shelley, English novelist and playwright (d. 1851)
*1812 – Agoston Haraszthy, Hungarian-American businessman, founded Buena Vista Winery (d. 1869)
*1818 – Alexander H. Rice, American businessman and politician, 30th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1895)
*1839 – Gulstan Ropert, French-American bishop and missionary (d. 1903)
* 1842 – Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of Russia (d. 1849)
*1844 – Emily Ruete/Salama bint Said, also called Sayyida Salme, a Princess of Zanzibar and Oman (d. 1924)
*1848 – Andrew Onderdonk, American surveyor and contractor (d. 1905)
*1850 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino journalist and lawyer (d. 1896)
*1852 – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1911)
* 1852 – J. Alden Weir, American painter and academic (d. 1919)
*1855 – Evelyn De Morgan, English painter (d. 1919)
*1856 – Carl David Tolmé Runge, German mathematician, physicist, and spectroscopist (d. 1927)
* 1858 – Ignaz Sowinski, Galician architect (d. 1917)
*1860 – Isaac Levitan, Russian painter and illustrator (d. 1900)
*1870 – Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia (d. 1891)
*1871 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand-English physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1937)
*1883 – Theo van Doesburg, Dutch artist (d. 1931)
* 1884 – Theodor Svedberg, Swedish chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
*1885 – Tedda Courtney, Australian rugby league player and coach (d. 1957)
* 1887 – Paul Kochanski, Polish violinist and composer (d. 1934)
*1890 – Samuel Frederick Henry Thompson, English captain and pilot (d. 1918)
*1893 – Huey Long, American lawyer and politician, 40th Governor of Louisiana (d. 1935)
* 1896 – Raymond Massey, Canadian-American actor and playwright (d. 1983)
*1898 – Shirley Booth, American actress and singer (d. 1992)

1901–present

*1901 – John Gunther, American journalist and author (d. 1970)
* 1901 – Roy Wilkins, American journalist and activist (d. 1981)
*1903 – Bhagwati Charan Verma, Indian author (d. 1981)
* 1906 – Joan Blondell, American actress and singer (d. 1979)
* 1906 – Olga Taussky-Todd, Austrian mathematician (d. 1995)
*1907 – Leonor Fini, Argentinian painter, illustrator, and author (d. 1996)
* 1907 – Bertha Parker Pallan, American archaeologist (d. 1978)
* 1907 – John Mauchly, American physicist and co-founder of the first computer company (d. 1980)
* 1908 – Fred MacMurray, American actor (d. 1991)
*1909 – Virginia Lee Burton, American author and illustrator (d. 1968)
*1910 – Roger Bushell, South African-English soldier and pilot (d. 1944)
*1912 – Edward Mills Purcell, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1997)
* 1912 – Nancy Wake, New Zealand-English captain (d. 2011)
*1913 – Richard Stone, English economist and statistician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
*1915 – Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland (d. 2013)
* 1915 – Robert Strassburg, American composer, conductor, and educator (d. 2003)
*1916 – Shailendra, Pakistani-Indian songwriter (d. 1968)
* 1917 – Denis Healey, English soldier and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 2015)
* 1917 – Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia (d. 1992)
*1918 – Harold Atcherley, English businessman (d. 2017)
* 1918 – Billy Johnson, American baseball player (d. 2006)
* 1918 – Ted Williams, American baseball player and manager (d. 2002)
*1919 – Maurice Hilleman, American microbiologist and vaccinologist (d. 2005)
* 1919 – Wolfgang Wagner, German director and manager (d. 2010)
* 1919 – Kitty Wells, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2012)
*1920 – Arnold Green, Estonian soldier and politician (d. 2011)
*1922 – Lionel Murphy, Australian jurist and politician, 22nd Attorney-General of Australia (d. 1986)
* 1922 – Regina Resnik, American soprano and actress (d. 2013)
*1923 – Barbara Ansell, English physician and author (d. 2001)
* 1923 – Charmian Clift, Australian journalist and author (d. 1969)
* 1923 – Vic Seixas, American tennis player
*1924 – Kenny Dorham, American singer-songwriter and trumpet player (d. 1972)
* 1924 – Lajos Kisfaludy, Hungarian chemist and engineer (d. 1988)
*1925 – Laurent de Brunhoff, French author and illustrator
* 1925 – Donald Symington