History of the Day for:
December 30
- 1731: The first music concert in the U.S. was held at Peter Pelham's great room in Boston.
- 1817: The first coffee was planted in Hawaii in Kona.
- 1853: The United States bought some 45,000 square miles of land by The Gila River from Mexico for $10 million in a deal that became known as the Gadsden Purchase, an area that is now southern Arizona and New Mexico.
- 1873: The American Metrological Society is formed in New York City to improve systems of weights, measures and money.
- 1911: Sun Yat-sen was elected the first president of the Republic of China after the fall of the Chinese dynasties.
- 1922: Vladimir I. Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, five years after the Bolsheviks overthrew a provisional government that had replaced Czar Nicholas II.
- 1924: Edwin Hubble announced the existence of other Milky Way galactic systems.
- 1936: The United Auto Workers Union staged its first "sit-own" strike, at the Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Mich.
- 1940: California's first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, was officially opened by Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron.
- 1954: The 24-second shot clock was used in professional basketball for the first time in a game between Rochester and a Boston team.
- 1959: The first ballistic missile submarine, the USS George Washington, was commissioned in Groton, Conn.
- 1963: "Let's Make A Deal," debuted on NBC; Congress authorized the Kennedy half?dollar following JFK's assassination.
- 1965: Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated as president of the Phillipines.
- 1974: The Beatles were legally disbanded, four years to the day after Paul McCartney sued his bandmates to dissolve the partnership.
- 1980: "The Wonderful World of Disney," the longest-running series in prime time television history, at 25 years old, was canceled by NBC.
- 1981: In the 39th game of his 3rd NHL season Wayne Gretzky scores 5 goals giving him 50 on the year setting a new NHL record previously held by Maurice Richard and Mike Bossy who earlier had each scored 50 goals in 50 games.
- 1986: The Swift Current Broncos' bus crashes during bad weather outside Swift Current, Saskatchewan, killing 4 players and injuring 1.
- 1993: Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations.
- 1995: The lowest ever United Kingdom temperature of -27.2°C was recorded at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands. This equalled the record set at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on February 11, 1895 and January 10, 1982.
- 1996: In the Indian state of Assam, a passenger train is bombed by Bodo separatists, killing 26.
- 1996: Proposed budget cuts by Benjamin Netanyahu spark protests from 250,000 workers who shut down services across Israel.
- 1997: In the worst incident in Algeria's insurgency, the Wilaya of Relizane massacres, 400 people are killed from four villages.
- 2000: Rizal Day Bombings: A series of bombs explode in various places in Metro Manila, Philippines within a period of a few hours, killing 22 and injuring about a hundred.
- 2003: U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself and his office from the Plame affair.
- 2004: A fire in the República Cromagnon nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina kills 194.
- 2005: Tropical Storm Zeta forms in the open Atlantic Ocean, tying the record for the latest tropical cyclone ever to form in the North Atlantic basin.
- 2006: Madrid Barajas International Airport is bombed.
- 2006: Deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein, convicted of the executions of 148 Iraqi Shiites, is executed by hanging.