Today in History - April 30
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30 Apr 30,
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified [see 33AD]. Christ died on hill of
Golgotha, Jerusalem. His path along the Via Dolorosa was later
disputed as to whether he was tried by Pontius Pilate at the palace
of Herod or at the Roman fortress of Antonia. His death was at an
abandoned quarry, the site of today’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In 1998 Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar published "The Acts of
Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus." The group had
published an earlier work "The Five Gospels," in which the sayings
of Jesus were examined. In 1999 Thomas Cahill authored "Desire of
the Everlasting Hills," a book about Jesus and his effect on the
world. In 2010 Paul Johnson authored “Jesus: A Biography From a
Believer.” Also in 2010 Philip Pullman authored “The Good Man Jesus
and the Scoundrel Christ,” in which he proposes that Jesus and
Christ were twin brothers.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.C2)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.8)(HN,
4/30/98)(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.W12)(Econ, 4/3/10,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Jesus)
311 Apr 30, Emperor Galerius
recognized Christians legally in the Roman Empire.
(MC, 4/30/02)
313 Apr 30, Co-emperor Licinius
unified the whole of the eastern empire under his own rule.
(HN, 4/30/98)
535 Apr 30, Amalaswintha, queen
of Ostrogoten, was murdered.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1250 Apr 30, King Louis IX of
France was ransomed for one million dollars. The Mamluk dynasty
exacted 240 tons of silver for his release.
(HN, 4/30/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1309 Apr 30, Kazimierz III de
Great, King of Poland (1333-70), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1349 Apr 30, Jewish community
at Radolszell, Germany, was exterminated.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1396 Apr 30, Crusaders and the
Earl of Nevers departed from Dijon.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1492 Apr 30, Spain announced it
would expel all Jews.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1494 Apr 30, Christopher
Columbus arrived in Guantanamo Bay on his 2nd voyage to the
Americas.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1527 Apr 30, Henry VIII and
King Francis of France signed the treaty of Westminster.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1563 Apr 30, Jews were expelled
from France by order of Charles VI.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1602 Apr 30, William Lilly,
astrologer, author, almanac compiler, was born in England.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1629 Apr 30, John Endecott
became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
(http://38.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EN/ENDECOTT_JOHN.htm)
1651 Apr 30, Jean-Baptiste de
la Salle, French priest, theorist, saint, was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1671 Apr 30, Peter Zrinyi (49),
Hungarian banished to Croatia, was beheaded.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1695 Apr 30, William Congreve's
"Love for Love," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1708 Apr 30, Simon de Vries,
book seller, writer (Unequal), died.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1722 Apr 30, Game of Billiards
was mentioned in New England Courant.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1725 Apr 30, Spain withdrew
from the Quadruple Alliance.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1777 Apr 30, Karl Friedrich
Gauss, German mathematician, was born. He researched infinitesimal
calculus, algebra and astronomy. He was also a pioneer in topology
and is considered one of the world's great mathematicians. His
methods in World War II helped disarm magnetic mines
(HN, 4/30/99)
1789 Apr 30, George Washington
was inaugurated and took office in New York as the first president
of the United States. He took his oath of office on the balcony of
Federal Hall on Wall Street and spoke the words “So help me God,”
which all future US presidents have repeated. The oath as prescribed
by the Constitution makes no mention of God of the Bible.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(SSFC, 1/18/09,
p.W4)(AH, 4/07, p.31)
1792 Apr 30, John Montague
(73), 4th Earl of Sandwich, English Naval minister, died.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1798 Apr 30, US Department of
Navy formed.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1803 Apr 30, The US under
Thomas Jefferson signed a treaty that accepted the purchase of the
Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte's government of France
for 60 million francs or about $15 mil. The area included most of
the thirteen states that lie between the Mississippi River and the
Rocky Mountains. American envoys sent to France were originally
instructed to buy only the port city of New Orleans and were
astonished when Napoleon, abandoning plans for an American empire,
offered them all of Louisiana. The United States doubled in size
through the Louisiana Purchase. The federal government spent less
than $8 million in operations and borrowed the money needed for the
purchase.
(CO, 11/10/95)(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)(AP,
4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNPD, 5/1/99)
1808 Apr 30, Italian Pellegrini
Turri built the 1st practical typewriter for the blind Countess
Carolina Fantoni da Fivizono, the world's first typist.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(MC,
4/30/02)
1812 Apr 30, Louisiana became
the 18th state.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)
1849 Apr 30, Giuseppe
Garibaldi, Italian republican patriot and guerrilla leader, repulsed
a French attack on Rome.
(HN, 4/30/98)(ON, 10/06, p.5)
1852 Apr 30, A strong tornado
hit New Harmony, Indiana, killing 16 people.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.D8)
1852 Apr 30, Anton Rubinstein’s
opera "Dmitri Donskoi," premiered in St Petersburg.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1858 Apr 30, Mary Scott Lord
Dimmick, Pres. B. Harrison's first lady, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1859 Apr 30, The California
state legislature granted a charter to St. Ignatius Academy in San
Francisco. The school then changed its name to St. Ignatius College
with the right to confer degrees.
(GenIV, Winter
04/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_San_Francisco)
1860 Apr 30, Navaho Indians
attacked Fort Defiance (Canby).
(MC, 4/30/02)
1861 Apr 30, President Lincoln
ordered Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1864 Apr 30, Work began on the
Dams along the Red River which would allow Union General Nathaniel
Banks’ troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1864 Apr 30, New York became
the 1st state to charge for a hunting license.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1865 Apr 30-May 1, Gen
Sherman's "Haines's Bluff" at Snyder's Mill, Virginia.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1869 Apr 30, Hawaiian YMCA was
organized.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1870 Apr 30, Franz
Lehár, operetta composer, was born. He is best known for "The
Marry Widow" and "The Land of Smiles."
(HN, 4/30/99)
1871 Apr 30, Anglo and Mexican
vigilantes killed 118 Apaches at Camp Grant, Arizona, and kidnapped
28 children.
(www.desertusa.com/mag98/april/stories/campgrant1.html)
1877 Apr 30, Alice B. Toklas
(d.1967), expatriate American, was born. She was associated with
Gertrude Stein, who wrote "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas"
(1933).
(HN,
4/30/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_B._Toklas)
1885 Apr 30, Boston Pops
Orchestra formed.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1888 Apr 30, John Crowe Ransom,
poet and critic, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1889 Apr 30, Washington's
inauguration became the first U.S. national holiday.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1894 Apr 30, Giuseppe Farnara
and Francis Polti were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison
for attempted terrorism in London.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.65)
1900 Apr 30, Hawaii was
organized as a U.S. territory. [see Feb 22]
(AP, 4/30/97)
1900 Apr 30, Engineer John
Luther "Casey" Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad was killed in
a Cannonball Express wreck near Vaughan, Miss., after staying at the
controls in an effort to save the passengers.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1902 Apr 30, Debussy's opera
"Pelleas et Melisande" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1904 Apr 30, At 1:06 p.m.
President Theodore Roosevelt officially opened the St. Louis World’s
Fair commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase.
Although the Fair was originally scheduled to open in 1903, the
opening was delayed for a year while the elaborate fairgrounds were
completed. Visitors were awed by 142 miles of exhibits shown in
palatial buildings like Festival Hall the centerpiece of the fair
boasting an auditorium seating 3,500 and the largest pipe organ in
the world. Other wonders seen at the St. Louis World’s Fair were the
Liberty Bell, ice cream cones. Food vendors, Arnold Fornachou (ice
cream) and Ernest Hamwi (sweet, rolled wafers), collaborated for the
ice cream cones. In 1903 Italo Marconi received a patent for pastry
cornets to hold ice cream. Charles Menches sold ice cream at the
fair and an anonymous Syrian sold the zalabia pastry in the next
booth.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFC, 6/24/00,
p.B3)
1904 Apr 30, The St. Louis
World’s Fair popularized the all-American hamburger. The fair lasted
7 months and inspired the phrase "Meet Me in St. Louis." Cass
Gilbert designed the art museum in Foret park, the only building
left over from the fair. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition the
temperatures in St. Louis soared and hot-tea vendor Richard
Blechynden began pouring his tea over ice thus the invention of
iced-tea. The fair popularized sausage in a bun, the hot dog with
prepared mustard and the ice cream cone.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 11/17/96, Par
p.19)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Z1 p.8)(SSFC, 10/5/03,
p.C3)
1904 The 3rd modern Olympics
were held at the St. Louis World’s Fair. 1,505 contestants from 7
countries participated.
(PCh, 1992, p.658)
1904 Although invented in Waco,
Texas in the 1880s, Dr Pepper first received national exposure at
the St. Louis World‘s Fair.
(HNQ, 10/25/00)
1909 Apr 30, Juliana, Queen of
the Netherlands, was born. She fled during the Nazi occupation and
abdicated in favor of her daughter Beatrix.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1911 Apr 30, Portugal approved
woman suffrage.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1912 Apr 30, Eve Arden (Eunice
Quedens), actress, was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1919 Apr 30, US postal workers
discovered 30 booby-trap bombs in the national mail system,
targeting several members of congress and other public figures.
Investigators later implicated a network of anarchists and radicals
who were rounded up and deported.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.B2)
1921 Apr 30, Pope Benedict XV
issued his encyclical "On Dante."
(MC, 4/30/02)
1924 Apr 30, Sheldon Harnick,
lyricist (Fiorello, Fiddler on the Roof), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1927 Apr 30, Princess Juliana
got a seat in Dutch Council of State.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1930 Apr 30, The Soviet Union
proposed military alliance with France and Great Britain.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1933 Apr 30, Willie Nelson,
country singer who sang “On the Road Again” and “To All the Girls
I’ve Loved Before,” was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1936 Apr 30, The San Francisco
Chronicle reported that the Park-O-Meter has been recommended by
Chief Administrative Officer Alfred Cleary. A trial plan called for
50 meters on Market St. charging 10 cents for 20 minutes.
(SSFC, 4/24/11, DB p.46)
1938 Apr 30, Larry [Van Cott]
Niven, US sci-fi author (5 Hugo, Neutron Star), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1939 Apr 30, The New York
World’s Fair, billed as a look at "the world of tomorrow,"
officially opened. NY Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia mandated that the
city's nude dancers cover up during the fair. The cover-up evolved
into the G-string and later the thong. The General Motors exhibit
was titled Futurama. Philo T. Farnsworth premiered his television at
the fair. AT&T presented its first Picture Phone at the World's
Fair. Salvador Dali created a pavilion that was called “Dream of
Venus” and described as the “funny house of tomorrow.” In 2000 Miles
Beller authored "Dream of Venus (Or Living Pictures): A Novel of the
1939 New York world’s Fair." National Presto Industries introduced
the home pressure cooker at the fair.
(AP, 4/30/97)(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A8)(SFEC, 4/16/00,
BR p.7)(NYTBR, 2/2/03, p.20)
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0149460/trivia)(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A7)
1941 April 30, Iraqi pro-German
junta leader Rashid Ali ordered 9,000 troops to surround Habaniyah
and prepare to take it. The British troops, supported by Assyrian
and local infantry, defeated three Iraqi brigades with a few hundred
troops and 96 aircraft. By the end of the battle, British
bombers flying from Habaniyah destroyed the entire Iraqi air force.
The ground troops, aided by reinforcements, launched a
counterattack, took control of Baghdad and reinstalled a friendly
government.
(AP, 7/5/03)
1943 Apr 30, Pius XII wrote a
letter to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin and referred to the
extermination of the Jews. His concluding thoughts stated:
“Unhappily in the present state of affairs, we can bring no help
other than our prayers.”
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)
1943 Apr 30, The British
submarine HMS Seraph dropped “the man who never was," a dead man the
British planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean
off the coast of Spain. Operation Mincemeat was based on a 1939
suggestion by Lt. Commander Ian Fleming, and was used to cover
Britain’s invasion of Sicily.
(ON, 10/2010, p.4)
1943 Apr 30, Bergen-Belsen,
located near Hanover, formed as a POW camp.
(HNQ, 4/13/00)(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Dutch struck
against forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Rene Blum
(b.1878), art critic and impresario, died in Auschwitz. Blum became
director of plays and operettas at Monte Carlo in 1924. In 1931 he
was hired to form the Ballet of the Opera of Monte-Carlo by Prince
Louis II of Monaco. His brother was Leon Blum, the first Jewish
prime minister of France. In 2011 Judith Chazin-Bennahum authored
“Rene Blum and the Ballet Russes: In Search of a Lost Life.”
(SSFC, 8/28/11, p.F4)
1943 Apr 30, Etty Hillesum,
Dutch diarist, died in Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Beatrice Potter
Webb (b.1858), British socialist, reformer and writer, died. Her
books included “My Apprenticeship” (1943).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Webb)
1944 Apr 30, Jill Clayburgh,
actress (Unmarried Woman, Semi-Tough), was born in NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1944 Apr 30, The 8th and 9th US
Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force Bomber Command began to fly
sorties into France and the Low Countries in preparation for the
Allied Expeditionary Force landing on Jun 6.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.B9)
1945 Apr 30, Annie Dillard,
writer (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1945 Apr 30, "Arthur Godfrey
Time" made its debut on the CBS radio network.
(AP, 4/30/05)
1945 Apr 30, The show “Queen
For Today” began on the Mutual Broadcasting Company radio program.
In 1956 it moved to television as Queen For a Day until 1964 with a
2nd run from 1969-1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_for_a_Day)(WSJ, 2/4/08, p.B1)
1945 Apr 30, US troops attacked
at the Elbe.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1945 Apr 30, Lord Haw-Haw
called for a crusade against the Bolsheviks.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1945 Apr 30, Red Army opened an
attack on German Reichstag building in Berlin.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1945 Apr 30, The Russian Army
freed the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. They found 3,000 sickly
prisoners who had been unable to make the march north under the SS.
(AP, 4/17/05)
1945 Apr 30, Adolf Hitler (56)
committed suicide along with his wife of one day, Eva Braun (33), in
his Fuhrerbunker as Russian troops approached Berlin. Karl Donitz
became his successor. Their bodies were cremated and their remains
hastily buried in a shell hole in the Reich Chancellery garden just
hours before Berlin's fall. A few days later a Soviet officer showed
British troops Hitler's probable gravesite. In 1970 Russia’s KGB
ordered Hitler’s remained to be dug up, turned to powder and thrown
into the nearest river. In 1947 Hugh Trevor-Roper authored “The Last
Days of Hitler.” In 1973 Robert Payne authored a definitive
biography. In 1998 Ron Rosenbaum authored "Explaining Hitler: The
Search for the Origin of His Evil." In 1977 Robert G.L. Waite
(d.1999) authored The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler." In 2002 Ingo
Helm made a film for TV titled "Hitler’s Money." In 2004 the German
film “The Downfall” portrayed the last days of Hitler.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNPD, 4/30/99)(WSJ,
8/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)(SFC,
8/8/02, p.A14)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.48)(WSJ, 12/29/05, p.D8)
1945 Apr 30, Hanna Reitsch
evaded Soviet searchlights and fighters to reach temporary freedom
in German-held territory. During the final days of World War II,
German female test pilot Reitsch was ordered to fly General Ritter
von Greim 60 miles to Berlin to personally accept Adolf Hitler’s
appointment as Supreme Commander of the German Luftwaffe. Flying her
light plane through heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire, Reitsch and her
passenger reached Hitler’s underground bunker safely, where they
were among the last to see the German dictator alive. Although both
expected to die in the bunker, Hitler ordered Reitsch and Greim to
escape from Berlin to continue the fight.
(HNPD, 4/27/00)
1947 Apr 30, President Truman
signed a measure officially changing the name of Boulder Dam to
Hoover Dam.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1948 Apr 30, The charter of the
Organization of American States (OAS) was signed in Bogota,
Colombia.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1954 Apr 30, Jane Campion, New
Zealand film director (The Piano, A Portrait of a Lady), was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1954 Apr 30, KQED, SF-based
public television, began broadcasting.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.E1)
1955 Apr 30, West German unions
protested for 40-hour work week and more wages.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1955 Apr 30, Bao Dai
(1913-1997), Vietnam’s former emperor (1926-1945), ended his term as
chief of state (1949-1955). He went into exile in France where he
died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Dai)
1956 Apr 30, Richard Farina,
folk singer (Reflections in a Crystal Wind), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1956 Apr 30, Alben W. Barkley
(b.1877), the 35th Vice President of the US (1949-53), died in
Lexington, Va.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alben_W._Barkley)
1958 Apr 30, Britain's Life
Peerages Act 1958 allowed women to become members of the House of
Lords.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1961 Apr 30, Willie Mays of the
SF Giants hit 4 home runs in a game with the Milwaukee Braves.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A18)
1961 Apr 30, Eastern Airlines
began the 1st shuttle flights began between Wash DC, Boston and NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1961 Apr 30, Premier Fidel
Castro of Cuba received the Lenin Peace Prize.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1962 Apr 30, Milton Obote took
over as prime minister of Uganda.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Uganda)
1968 Apr 30, U.S. Marines
attacked a division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1969 Apr 30, US troops in
Vietnam peaked at 543,000. Over 33,000 had already been killed.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)
1970 Apr 30, President Nixon
announced to a national TV audience that the United States was
sending troops into Cambodia “to win the just peace that we desire.”
The action that sparked widespread protest. U.S. troops invaded
Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas and to attack
Communist border sanctuaries. Calling the joint U.S.-South
Vietnamese operation "indispensable," some 32,000 American and
48,000 South Vietnamese troops captured large caches of supplies,
but most Communist forces had already been withdrawn. A storm of
protest against expansion of the war swept the United States and
four days later four student protesters at Ohio's Kent State
University were shot dead by National Guardsmen.
(AP, 4/30/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(HN,
4/30/98)(HNQ, 5/3/98)
1970 Apr 30, Inger Stevens
(b.1934, Stockholm-born star of TV’s “The Farmer’s Daughter,” died
of an overdose. For all intents and purposes, Ms. Stevens' death was
a suicide but following her death, it came out in the tabloids that
she had been secretly married to African-American Ike Jones since
1961. The couple was estranged at the time of her death.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0828447/bio)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and
a group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi,
seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in
Japan's first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced
to 12 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP,
6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1973 Apr 30, President Nixon
announced the resignations of his aides H.R. Haldeman and John
Ehrlichman, along with Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and
White House counsel John Dean. Nixon announced that he would
nominate Elliot Richardson as US attorney general to oversee the
Watergate investigation.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A25)
1974 Apr 30, President Nixon
handed over partial transcripts of Watergate tape recordings.
(www.watergate.info/chronology/1974.shtml)
1975 Apr 30, The city of Saigon
fell to the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front forces.
The last American forces evacuated Saigon as South Vietnam
surrendered unconditionally to the Communist North Vietnamese. At
8:35 a.m. the last Americans, ten Marines from the embassy, departed
as North Vietnamese troops pour into Saigon and encounter little
resistance. By 11 a.m. the Viet Cong flag flew from the presidential
palace. President Minh broadcast a message of unconditional
surrender. Graham Martin, the US ambassador to South Vietnam, made a
hasty departure. The city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City and Nguyen
Huu Tho was the first mayor. The war left 58,200 Americans dead,
153,300 wounded, and 2,124 missing in action. The Communists listed
1 million dead, 300,000 missing and 2 million dead civilians.
President Gerald Ford, closing a chapter in United States history,
called upon Americans "to avoid recriminations about the past, to
look ahead to the many goals we share."
(SFC, 5/10/97,
p.A1)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1977 Apr 30, In Argentina 14
women whose children had disappeared went to the Plaza de Mayo to
demonstrate their cause. Police said they could not stay there so
they began to walk around the pyramid in the center of the plaza. In
2006 they completed their 1,500th and last demonstration [see Dec
1977].
(SSFC, 2/26/06, p.E3)
1980 Apr 30, In Pinole, Ca.,
Rena Aguilar was stabbed to death. 4 days later as police closed in
James R. Odle shot and killed Officer Floyd Swartz. Odle was
convicted and sentenced to death but his competency was later
questioned due to a removed temporal lobe following a car accident.
Swartz was the father of Amber Swartz, born 4 months after his
death. Amber Swartz-Garcia disappeared in 1988.
(SFC, 2/7/01, p.A19)(SFC, 7/7/09, p.C5)
1980 Apr 30, Terrorists seized
the Iranian Embassy in London. Only after the incident was over did
it become known that Iraq had trained and armed the gunmen in order
to try to embarrass Iran.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_Siege)
1980 Apr 30, Juliana
Z(1909-2004), Queen of the Netherlands, abdicated. Beatrix
Wilhelmina Armgard, was crowned queen of Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_of_the_Netherlands)
1981 Apr 30, William Eugene Cox
and Annika Oestberg Deasy (27) robbed and killed Joseph Torre (58),
a restaurant owner, in Stockton, Ca. A few days later they killed
Sgt. Richard Helbush and stole his patrol car. They were both caught
and sentenced to long jail terms. Cox later hanged himself in jail.
In 1999 Sweden called for the transfer of Deasy to Sweden under the
1983 Strasbourg Treaty, which provided for prisoner transfers. In
2009 a Swedish court ruled that Annika Ostberg (55) would be
released in 2011.
(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A13)(AP, 11/16/09)
1983 Apr 30, McKinley
Morganfield (68), better known as Muddy Waters, died. The US blues
singer and guitarist (Mad Love) was known as the King of the Blues.
The Mississippi-born guitarist revolutionized the genre in Chicago
in the 1940s and 50s with his electric blues.
(HNQ, 1/28/99)(www.muddywaters.com/bio.html)
1986 Apr 30, Ranch foreman
James Hazelton (28) and brother-in-law Peter Sparagana (23) were
murdered near Huntsville, Texas, after they interrupted a burglary.
Gary Johnson (59) was later convicted of the murders and was
executed on Jan 12, 2010.
(SFC, 1/13/10,
p.A6)(www.itemonline.com/local/local_story_011092452.html)
1987 Apr 30, President Reagan
welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to the White
House.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1987 Apr 30, William Bennett,
US Education Secretary, called for mandatory AIDS testing for
several groups of people, including hospital patients and prison
inmates.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1987 Apr 30, The Christian
Coalition, created by Pat Robertson, was incorporated.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Coalition_of_America)
1987 Apr 30, Pope John Paul II
began a five-day visit to West Germany.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1988 Apr 30, World Exposition,
Expo 88 opened in Brisbane, Australia.
(http://expomuseum.com/1988/)
1988 Apr 30, Gen. Manuel
Noriega, waving a machete, vowed at a rally to keep fighting U.S.
efforts to oust him as Panama's military ruler.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1989 Apr 30, President Bush
attended a parade in New York City celebrating the bicentennial of
the American presidency.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1989 Apr 30, Sergio Leone (60),
Italian director (Good, Bad & Ugly), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0001466/)
1990 Apr 30, Hostage Frank Reed
was released by his captives in Lebanon, the second American freed
in eight days.
(AP, 4/30/00)
1991 Apr 30, Former
Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas announced his bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
(AP, 4/30/01)
1991 Apr 29-1991 Apr 31, A
cyclone in Bangladesh killed an estimated 131,000 people. 9 million
were left homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and
water borne disease.
(http://tinyurl.com/duk2u)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1992 Apr 30, As rioting in Los
Angeles entered its second day, President Bush condemned the
violence and said the Justice Department would intensify its
investigation of police conduct in the beating of Rodney King.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1993 Apr 30, Top-ranked women's
tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a match in
Hamburg, Germany, by a man who called himself a fan of second-ranked
German player Steffi Graf. Convicted of causing grievous bodily
harm, he received a suspended sentence.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1994 Apr 30, The Eurovision
Song Contest was held in Dublin’s Point Theater. The first
performance of Riverdance was held there which featured a modern
form of Irish stepdancing.
(WSJ, 3/12/96, p. A-16)
1994 Apr 30, The counting of
ballots began in South Africa's first all-race elections.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1994 Apr 30, Some 100,000 men,
women and children fleeing ethnic slaughter in Rwanda crossed into
neighboring Tanzania. In Rwanda Tutsis were singled out, abducted
and massacred at a convent close to an army camp. In 2010 in
Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down
a life sentence to Ildephonse Hategekimana, a lieutenant from the
former Rwandan army, for ordering the massacre. He was found guilty
of genocide, murder and rape.
(AP, 4/30/99)(AFP, 12/6/10)
1995 Apr 30, President Clinton
announced he would end U.S. trade and investment with Iran,
denouncing the Tehran government as "inspiration and paymaster to
terrorists."
(AP, 4/30/00)
1995 Apr 30, Federated merged
the A&S (Abraham & Straus) stores into Macy's,
Bloomingdale's and Stern's.
(http://tenant-search.net/dealmakers/1995%20Issues/DM042195.asp)
1995 Apr 30, More than 10,000
soldiers, students and children in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,
celebrated the 20th anniversary of the end of the war.
(AP, 4/30/00)
1996 Apr 30, In Fort Myers,
Florida, members of a teen militia called the Lords of Chaos slew
high-school band director Mark Schwebes. They had begun a crime
spree on Apr 13 with acts of arson and vandalism. Arrested were
Kevin Foster,18, Derek Shields, 18, Peter Magnotti, 17, Christopher
Black, 18, Christopher Burnett, 17, and Thomas Tarrone, 16.
1996 Apr 30, President Clinton
and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres signed an accord in
Washington extending U.S. help to Israel in countering terrorism.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1997 Apr 30, ABC aired the
"coming out" of the title character in the sitcom "Ellen," played by
Ellen DeGeneres.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, President Clinton
reopened the newly renovated Thomas Jefferson Building of the
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, The Senate
approved the nomination of Alexis Herman to be labor secretary.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, Sarah Patterson
(11) was sexually assaulted and murdered with her throat slit near
Fort Worth, Texas. Her brother was beaten, but survived and later
testified against Bobby Wayne Woods. Woods (44) was executed on Dec
3, 2009.
(SFC, 12/4/09,
p.A18)(www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/08/jan08.htm)
1997 Apr 30, A huge blast
killed 22 Albanians in the village of Selize. They were stripping
the bronze casings of mortar shells stored in a cave.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A13)
1998 Apr 30, President Clinton
questioned the conduct of Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr and
dismissed Republican challenges to his own character as "high-level
static" during a news conference.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 Apr 30, The US Senate
approved the expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the
Czech Republic.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, In Florida
lawmakers passed a bill that required girls under 18 to notify at
least one parent prior to an abortion.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, United and Delta
airlines formed an alliance that would control one-third of all U.S.
passenger seats.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 Apr 30, A study reported
in the New England Journal of medicine that RU-486, an abortion
pill, was 92% effective in causing abortions with 15 days without
surgery.
(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, A report in Nature
traced mammals back to around 100 million years before the present
using a “molecular clock.”
(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 30, The 85,000 ton
Disney cruise ship Disney Magic was scheduled to debut.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.T5)
1998 Apr 30, In California
Daniel V. Jones (40) blew up his truck and fatally shot himself on a
connector bridge between the harbor and Century Freeways freeway
with live TV coverage. He had HIV and displayed an anti-HMO banner
before killing himself.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A3)(SFC, 5/2/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, In Indiana Antoine
Whitehead (19) robbed the KeyBank in Carmel and killed Penny Schmitt
(32) and shot 3 co-workers. He had just been refused a loan and
killed himself following an intensive manhunt.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A10)
1998 Apr 30, In Northern
Ireland the IRA refused to disarm as part of the peace accord, which
demanded the decommission of weaponry to begin in June and finish in
2 years.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D2)
1999 Apr 30, The US State Dept.
annual report on terrorism listed Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North
Korea, Sudan and Syria as sponsoring terrorism groups.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A8)
1999 Apr 30, The Florida
Legislature gave final approval to a school voucher program that
would entitle students in the worst public schools to receive
$3-25,000 a year to help pay for private or parochial school
tuition. In 2002 a judge struck down the school-voucher law.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A4)(WSJ, 8/6/02, p.A1)
1999 Apr 30, Cambodia was
admitted as the 10th member of the Association of Asian Nations
(ASEAN).
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr 30, In Guatemala some
600 peasants stormed a police station in Huehuetenango and freed 12
former paramilitary members who had just been sentenced to 25 years
in prison for killing peasants in Colotenango in 1993.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr 30, In London a bomb
exploded at the Admiral Duncan pub, a gay bar in Soho. 2-3 people
were killed and over 70 wounded. David Copeland (24) was convicted
for the bombing in 2000.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A1)(AP, 4/30/00)(SFC, 7/1/00,
p.A14)
1999 Apr 30, Ecuador reached an
agreement with the IMF for a $900 million loan package.
(WSJ, 5/3/99, p.A1,16)
1999 Apr 30, NATO undertook
over 600 sorties and strikes in Montenegro and Kosovo reportedly
killed 13 people.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 30, In Belgrade,
Serbia, a 5.5 earthquake struck. Later in the day Jesse Jackson met
with the 3 captured Americans and planned to meet with Pres.
Milosevic for their release. In an interview Pres. Milosevic
pronounced that his countrymen were willing to died to defend their
rights.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A1,6)(AP, 4/30/00)
1999 Apr 30, Serbian forces
began a forced evacuation of Prizren and 10,000 people crossed the
border to Albania.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A6)
2000 Apr 30, The Clinton
administration defended their decision to classify AIDS as a threat
to national security as a means to garner attention and funding to
fight the disease worldwide.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A7)
2000 Apr 30, The 4th annual gay
rights rally, billed as the Millennium March, was held in Washington
DC. The crowd in the national Mall was estimated from 200-750
thousand.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.A13)(AP, 4/30/01)
2000 Apr 30, It was reported by
the Royal Swedish Academy that the Earth is currently hotter than at
any time in recorded human history.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.A17)
2000 Apr 30, In Guatemala
villagers in Todos Santos Cuchuman stoned to death a Japanese
tourist, Tetsuo Yamahiro (40), and his tour’s bus driver, Edgar
Castellanos (35), in the belief that they had come to steal
children. The driver was cremated with gasoline.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A14)
2000 Apr 30, In Sri Lanka
rebels captured a key army base at Pallai.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A13)
2001 Apr 30, US Immigration
offices were converged on by illegal immigrants on the last day for
applying for residency status without leaving the country.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A3)
2001 Apr 30, The SF Board of
Supervisors passed a measure 9-2 to allow city employees medical
benefits for a sex change.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 30, Chandra Levy (24),
an intern from Modesto, Ca., was last seen at a health club
near her apartment in Washington, DC. On July 5 the aunt of Chandra
Levy reported that her niece told her of a relationship with US Rep.
Gary Condit before she disappeared. Levy’s remains were found May
22, 2002, in Rock Creek Park, Washington DC. In 2009 Ingmar
Guandique (27), a Salvadoran immigrant already serving a 10-year
sentence for attacking 2 women in the same park, was charged in her
murder. In 2010 Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz authored “Finding
Chandra: The True Washington Murder Mystery.” In Nov 22, 2010, a
jury found Guandique guilty of 2 counts of 1st degree murder. On Feb
11, 2011, Guandique was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.A3)(SFC, 7/6/01, p.A1)(AP,
4/30/02)(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/09, p.A4)(SSFC, 5/9/10,
p.F1)(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A12)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A6)
2001 Apr 30, The Soyuz-32,
carrying California businessman, multimillionaire Dennis Tito and 2
Russian astronauts, Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin, docked with
the Int’l. Space Station. The Soyuz landed in the Kazak steppe on
May 6.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.A15)(AP,
4/30/02)
2001 Apr 30, In Colombia Carlos
Alberto Trespalacios (33), information director for the Medellin
sports institute, was slain in the El Poblado district.
(SFC, 5/2/01, p.A9)
2001 Apr 30, It was reported
that Germany’s Chancellor Schroeder had proposed a draft for turning
the EU Executive Commission into a European government and giving
the EU Parliament full power over the 15-nation budget.
(SFC, 4/30/01, p.A8)
2001 Apr 30, In Indonesia 363
of 500 legislators censured Pres. Wahid for a 2nd time this year.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A8)
2001 Apr 30, In Mexico
Zapatista rebels broke off contact with the government due to the
watered down Indian rights legislation.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A9)
2001 Apr 30, Five Palestinians
were killed in bomb blasts in Gaza and the West Bank.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A10)
2001 Apr 30, In the Philippines
the army went on alert after Cardinal Sin urged people into the
streets to defend democracy and Pres. Arroyo from defenders of
former Pres. Estrada. Some 20,000 followers of Estrada tried to
storm the presidential palace and at least 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 4/30/01, p.A8)(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A8)(WSJ,
5/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 30, In Zambia the
ruling party nominated Pres. Chiluba for re-election following a
vote to amend the constitution.
(WSJ, 5/1/01, p.A1)
2002 Apr 30, Benevolence
International Foundation, an Islamic charity based in suburban
Chicago, and its director were charged with perjury and accused by
the FBI of supporting terrorists; the charity maintains its
innocence. Enaam Arnaout later pleaded guilty to racketeering,
admitting he had defrauded donors by diverting some of the money to
Islamic military groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2002 Apr 30, Striking new
images from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope were unveiled.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 30, A US grand jury
indicted Colombia’s rebel FARC army and 6 of its members on charges
of murdering 3 Americans.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 30, Israel blocked the
UN proposed fact-finding mission to Jenin. Israeli forces pulled out
of Hebron and 26 Palestinians emerged from the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 30, North Korea
accepted a US invitation on talks to curb its missile program and
military exports.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 30, In Pakistan Pres.
Musharraf won a resounding mandate for 5 more years in office, but
the turnout was estimated at only 25-30%. Published figures showed
97.7% support and over 50% turnout and much voter fraud was alleged.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A10)(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 30, Russia’s military
command said the Chechen commander Shamil Basayev had been killed.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 30, In Somalia a fire
destroyed half of the Bakara market in Mogadishu. At least 7 people
were killed in attempts to stop looters.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2003 Apr 30, Donald Rumsfeld
visited Iraq and hailed its liberation. US soldiers fired on
anti-American protesters in the city of Fallujah; the mayor said two
people were killed and 14 wounded.
(AP, 4/30/03)(SFC, 5/1/03, A1)
2003 Apr 30, The U.S. Navy
withdrew from its disputed Vieques bombing range in Puerto Rico,
prompting celebrations by islanders.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2003 Apr 30, Eric Gupton
(b.1960), founding member of the Black theater troupe Pomo Afro
Homos, died in SF of complications from AIDS. The group’s
breakthrough first show was titled “Fierce Love: Stories From black
Gay Life” (1990).
(SFC, 2/18/08, p.E1)
2003 Apr 30, Burundi's Tutsi
minority handed over the presidency to Domitien Ndayizeye of the
Hutu majority as part of the peace process aimed at ending 9 1/2
years of civil war.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 Apr 30, In Israel some
700,000 workers closed down public services in an open-ended strike
to protest proposed spending cuts and mass firings.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A9)
2003 Apr 30, US Ambassador Dan
Kurtzer met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to present him
with an internationally backed Mideast peace plan, that envisioned
Palestinian statehood within three years. Mediators presented
Israeli and Palestinian leaders with a new Middle East "road map," a
U.S.-backed blueprint for ending 31 months of violence and
establishing a Palestinian state.
(AP, 4/30/03)(AP, 4/30/04)
2003 Apr 30, Mahmoud Abbas took
office as Palestinian prime minister.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2003 Apr 30, Libyan Foreign
Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said his government accepted
responsibility for the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A7)
2003 Apr 30, North Korea was
reported to be a country with 1.17 million military personnel, the
world's 5th largest. Its air force had more than 1,700 aircraft and
the navy more than 800 ships. In March Gen. Leon J. LaPorte said
"North Korea maintains a substantial chemical weapons stockpile and
a production capability that threatens both our military forces and
civilian population centers in South Korea and Japan." In addition,
he said, North Korea has the capability "to develop, produce and
potentially weaponize biological warfare agents."
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 Apr 30, South and North
Korea agreed in Cabinet-level talks to peacefully resolve the
nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2004 Apr 30, On ABC's
"Nightline," Ted Koppel read aloud the names of 721 U.S. servicemen
and women killed in the Iraq war. The Sinclair Broadcast Group
refused to air the program on seven ABC stations.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2004 Apr 30, Graphic
photographs were shown on TV screens across the Middle East of naked
Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by smiling U.S. military police.
Pres. Bush condemned the mistreatment of prisoners, saying it "does
not reflect the nature of the American people."
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, Former NBA star
Jayson Williams was acquitted of manslaughter in the shotgun slaying
of a limousine driver at his mansion, but found guilty of trying to
cover up the shooting.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, Michael Jackson
pleaded not guilty in Santa Maria, Calif., to a grand jury
indictment that expanded the child molestation case against him.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2004 Apr 30, In the SF Bay Area
the National Labor Relations Board ruled that cab drivers for an
East Bay syndicate to taxi companies are employees, not independent
contractors, and therefore entitled to unionize. The companies
refused to negotiate.
(SFC, 7/28/04, p.B5)
2004 Apr 30, Bosnian Serb
authorities offered details of six previously undisclosed mass
graves in the town of Srebrenica.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, In Indonesia
hundreds of protesters clashed with police as officers
re-arrested Abu Bakar Bashir (66), a Muslim cleric accused of
heading an al-Qaeda-linked terror network. Muslims and Christians
with homemade bombs and military-issue weapons clashed in the
eastern city of Ambon, leaving 15 wounded and scores of houses in
flames.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, Iraqi troops led
by Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh (49), one of Saddam Hussein's
generals, replaced U.S. Marines and raised the Iraqi flag at the
entrance to Fallujah under a plan to end the month long siege of the
city. A suicide car bomb on the outskirts killed two Americans and
wounded six. Saleh was replaced May 3 by Muhammad Latif, a former
Iraqi intelligence officer.
(AP, 4/30/04)(SFC, 5/4/04, p.A11)
2004 Apr 30, U.S. troops and
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to a three-day truce in
negotiations to end the standoff at Najaf.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, The Associated
Press found that around 1,361 Iraqis were killed from April 1 to
April 30, 10 times the figure of at least 136 U.S. troops who died
during the same period.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, A bus skidded off
a mountain highway in central Nepal, killing at least 29 people.
(AP, 5/1/04)
2004 Apr 30, In southern
Vietnam a tourist boat carrying about 130 passengers sank off the
coast. Authorities recovered 22 bodies, including one 8-year-old
boy.
(AP, 5/1/04)
2005 Apr 30, James Toney
outpointed John Ruiz to win the WBA heavyweight title in NY.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2005 Apr 30, Jennifer Wilbanks
(32) of Duluth, Georgia, turned up in Albuquerque, NM, after being
missing for 4 days. She was scheduled to be married Apr 30, and got
“cold feet.”
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 30, “With all of its
liabilities in dollars and most of its assets in foreign currencies,
America gets a wealth boost when the dollar drops.” The Bank of
Japan and other central banks have amassed $2 trillion in
foreign-exchange reserves, perhaps 70% in dollars. Should the dollar
fall, these central banks will be exposed to heavy capital losses.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.70,74)
2005 Apr 30, In Egypt a bomb
blast and tour bus shooting took place near Cairo tourist sites. A
man identified as a suspect in an April 7 bombing blew himself up as
he leapt off a bridge during a police chase. Less than two hours
later 2 veiled women opened fire on a tour bus in a historic part of
Cairo and one of them was killed in a gunbattle with security
guards.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 30, Insurgents
launched fresh attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq, killing at
least 10 Iraqis and wounding more than 30.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Nepal's King
Gyanendra lifted a state of emergency he imposed after seizing power
in February.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Palestinian
security officials said Israeli special forces entered Tulkarem
before dawn and arrested 18-year-old Mohammed Shalhoub. Israeli
military officials said Shalhoub was an Islamic Jihad militant
preparing an imminent suicide attack against Israelis and had
already filmed the video testament often left by suicide bombers.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 30, Students and
administrators at the main campus of Puerto Rico's largest
university agreed to end a 3-week-old strike called to protest a 33
percent tuition increase.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Sudanese leaders
began work on drafting an interim constitution expected to seal a
peace deal with the south, but major opposition groups boycotted the
opening session.
(AFP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, In western Turkey
a police officer was killed and four others were injured when a
parcel bomb exploded in the hands of a bomb disposal expert in a
seaside resort town.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Vietnam marked the
30th anniversary of the war's end.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Some 100,000
rallied in Washington DC, SF and other US cities to urge the Bush
administration to take decisive action to stop the genocide in
Darfur.
(SFC, 5/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, It was reported
that on average a family of four should expect to pay $261 a day for
food and lodging when traveling in the US this summer.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.G2)
2006 Apr 30, In San Francisco
Daniel Elizalde (17) shot and killed Karl Bartolome (19) as
Bartolome walked with his girlfriend and nephew at Lisbon and Persia
streets in the Excelsior district. Elizalde later pleaded guilty to
2nd degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life.
(SFC, 12/25/09, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/ydhpjr4)
2006 Apr 30, In Afghanistan
Edward Caraballo (44), an American jailed for two years in Kabul on
charges of torturing alleged terrorists in a makeshift jail, was
freed two months early after a government decree. Police found an
Indian hostage's beheaded body in southern Afghanistan. Taliban
militants said they shot the hostage dead as he tried to escape.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Australia
rescuers made voice contact with two miners trapped a half mile
beneath the earth for nearly a week. Todd Russell (34) and Brant
Webb (37) were trapped April 25 when a small earthquake caused a
rock collapse at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine. One of their co-workers
was killed in the quake.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, A fisherman off
Barbados found a boat with the bodies of 11 men from Senegal. The
boat had left Senegal Christmas eve with 52 migrant people and was
apparently bound for the Canary Islands.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, British
environment ministry officials said work has begun to cull chickens
at two more poultry farms in eastern England after the suspected
discovery there of the H7 strain of bird flu.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, China successfully
tested a locally made magnetic levitation train, the first time the
country has achieved the feat without using foreign technology. The
20-ton test maglev train ran steadily on a 1,400-foot experimental
line in the provincial capital of Chengdu, the capital of
southwestern Sichuan province.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Congo's electoral
commission said that national elections, the first in 40 years for
the violence-plagued central African nation, will take place July
30, about a month later than planned.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Egypt's parliament
agreed to a two-year extension of emergency law requested by the
government while it prepares replacement anti-terrorism laws.
Egyptian security forces hunting bombers behind attacks last week in
the Sinai peninsula fought gunbattles with suspects and killed 3 of
them.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AFP, 5/2/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Ethiopia
visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he
backed plans for an expanded United Nations Security Council, adding
that he would present his country's position at the African Union
(AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Iraq the office
of President Jalal Talabani said he had met with representatives of
seven armed groups and was optimistic they may agree to lay down
their weapons. Bombs and drive-by shootings killed 12 people. The
bodies of 7 Iraqi men, who apparently were kidnapped and tortured,
were found in three areas of the capital. Three security contractors
were killed and two others injured in a roadside bomb attack 30
miles south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Israel's Cabinet
voted to modify the route of its West Bank separation barrier to put
thousands of Palestinians on the "Palestinian" side of the
enclosure.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Suspected Islamic
militants raided a village in Indian-controlled Kashmir and killed
22 Hindus, lining them outside their homes and shooting them
execution-style. Police found the bodies of 4 of 13 Hindu cattle
grazers who were abducted over the weekend by suspected Islamic
militants. 9 more bodies were found the next day.
(AFP, 5/1/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Laotians voted for
a new parliament in a largely symbolic exercise since all the
candidates belonged to the communist party. But in an effort to
bring in fresh faces, only about a quarter were incumbents.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Nepal's Parliament
called for a cease-fire with Maoist insurgents and elections for an
assembly to rewrite the constitution, as the new PM Girija Prasad
Koirala (84) urged the rebels to sit down for talks.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Pakistan an
army spokesman said Mohammed Farooq, a senior Pakistani scientist
suspected of helping leak nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya,
and North Korea, has been released after two years in detention.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Saudi King
Abdullah issued a decree lowering domestic gasoline prices by about
25%. That would lower the cost to about 16 cents per liter.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Serbia braced for
suspension of EU aid and trade talks as deadline expired for the
arrest of war-crimes fugitive Ratco Mladic.
(WSJ, 5/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, In eastern Sri
Lanka at least 18 rebels were killed and many wounded when Tamil
Tiger guerrillas launched a major attack against a breakaway
faction.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, The Sudanese
government said it was ready to sign a draft peace deal with rebels
from its Darfur region, but the rebels said they still had
reservations about the agreement.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2007 Apr 30, The US announced a
major expansion of offshore oil and gas development, with proposed
lease sales covering 48 million new acres.
(WSJ, 5/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 30, US and Mexican law
enforcement officials said Mexican druglords are taking over the
business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as
human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in
cocaine shipments across the same border.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Delta Air Lines
emerged from bankruptcy after 19 months in Chapter 11.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.84)
2007 Apr 30, Tom Poston
(b.1921), American TV and film actor, died in Los Angeles.
(AP,
4/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Poston)
2007 Apr 30, The presidents of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, a meeting arranged by Turkish leaders,
agreed to share intelligence on extremist groups to bolster efforts
to deny sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists in both
countries. NATO-led troops killed 75 suspected insurgents on the
first day of an operation against Taliban militants in a valley in
southern Helmand province. Hundreds of people demonstrated in the
Shindand district of the western province of Herat, after coalition
and Afghan operations there on April 27 and 29, insisting that
civilians were among the victims. Police the next day said at least
30 civilians, including women and children, were among those killed
in Shindand's fighting. The US military reported killing 136 rebels
over 3 days of fighting in western Afghanistan. One US soldier died
in the clashes.
(AP, 4/30/07)(AP, 5/1/07)(AFP, 5/1/07)(WSJ,
5/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 30, Miles
Hilton-Barber (58), A blind British adventurer, touched down in
Sydney Monday to end an epic 13,500-mile flight by microlight
aircraft from London. His 54-day journey was performed under the
supervision of sighted co-pilot Richard Meredith-Hardy.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, A British judge
sentenced five men to life in prison for plotting to bomb several
targets in London including a popular nightclub, power plants and
shopping mall in a trial that exposed links between the men and at
least two of the suicide bombers who attacked the capital two years
ago. Mohammed Junaid Babar's testimony in the yearlong trial
revealed how disaffected Britons were trained for terrorism in
Pakistan, where many have family ties. The former terrorist turned
informant was arrested in New York in 2004, and has since given
evidence to prosecutors in Britain, the US and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/30/07)(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, Britain's first
convicted war criminal was sentenced to a year in prison and
dismissed from the army in connection with the death of an Iraqi
hotel worker. Corp. Donald Payne had pleaded guilty to inhumanely
treating Iraqi civilians in southern Basra in 2003.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In China a manager
of a feed company and one of the chemical's producers said that the
mildly toxic chemical melamine is commonly added to animal feed in
China. The process fraudulently boosts the feed's sales value but
risks introducing the chemical into meat eaten by humans.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Egyptian
authorities released two Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers but ordered 12
other members of the country's most powerful opposition group
detained.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, A suicide car
bomber apparently targeting an Interior Ministry convoy struck an
Iraqi checkpoint near a busy square in the predominantly Sunni Arab
area of Harthiyah in western Baghdad, killing 4 people and wounding
10. Some 50 gunmen attacked a police station in a mainly Sunni Arab
area in the northern city of Mosul, prompting clashes as police
chased the attackers through the streets. 4 gunmen were killed and
two were detained, while one policeman was wounded. A parked car
bomb struck a police patrol in the same area, killing one policeman
and wounding two. A suicide bomber struck a crowd of funeral
mourners north of Baghdad killing over 30 people. Nationwide at
least 102 people were killed.
(AP, 4/30/07)(SFC, 5/1/07, p.A12)
2007 Apr 30, An Israeli
government commission aimed harsh criticism at PM Ehud Olmert and
other officials for their handling of last summer's war in Lebanon.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Hundreds of
protesters briefly pushed into the Palestinian education ministry as
Fatah-allied teachers in the West Bank went on strike to press for
the payment of overdue salaries. Angry Palestinian demonstrators
stormed the Egyptian embassy in Gaza City, demanding that Egypt
release five Palestinians held in Cairo jails.
(AP, 5/1/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In the northern
Philippines Mayor Julian Resuello of San Carlos died 2 days after he
was shot to death.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The South African
government and AIDS campaigners launched a joint national body to
oversee a program aimed at halving the country's rate of new
infections.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Sudanese armed
forces vowed to "crush" a coalition of rebel groups in Darfur for
killing an officer whose helicopter had landed in north Darfur after
a technical failure.
(Reuters, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In southern
Thailand suspected Islamic insurgents exploded a bomb at a busy
night market and wounded 20 people.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, In southern
Tunisia a stampede at an open-air concert by stars of the Arab
version of "American Idol" killed seven young people and injured 32.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Turkish stock
market plunged, reacting sharply to political tensions as the
Islamic-rooted government comes under strong pressure from secular
circles to call parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, President Hugo
Chavez announced he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the
nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2008 Apr 30, The US Federal
Reserve cut interest rates for a 7th time in 8 months, but signaled
that the rate-cutting may be nearing an end. The federal funds rate
was lowered to 2% from 2.25%.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 30, Scientists at
Hewlett-Packard said they have discovered a fourth basic type of
electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to
boot up. The three fundamental elements of a passive circuit
included resistors, capacitors and inductors. In 1971 Leon Chua of
the University of California at Berkeley, theorized there should be
a fourth called a memory resistor, or memristor, which remembers the
direction and the amount of charge that flows through it.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)(SFC, 5/1/08, p.C1)
2008 Apr 30, Afghan security
forces raided a Kabul hide-out where militants with suspected links
to the attack on President Hamid Karzai were holed up. Seven people
died in the pre-dawn raid, including a child.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Attorney General
Robert McClelland said Australian gay and lesbian couples will have
the same rights as heterosexuals under new laws but marriage will
remain off limits.
(AFP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Western Australia
state police raided the Perth offices of the Sunday Times, which is
published by Australia's largest newspaper publisher, Rupert
Murdoch's News Limited. Staff said police were searching for the
source of a leak that led to a story alleging the state government
planned to use 16 million dollars (14.9 million US) in taxpayer
funds on an advertising campaign to help its re-election.
(AFP, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, Canada pledged an
extra C$50 million ($49.5 million) for international food aid and
said it would also allow its money to be used to buy food abroad and
not tie it to purchases of Canadian produce.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Syncrude Canada's
operations were under investigation by environmental regulators
after as many as 500 birds landed in the waste water in the oil
sands region of northern Alberta.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, The Olympic torch
returned to Chinese soil after a turbulent 20-nation tour, landing
in the bustling financial capital of Hong Kong where officials
deported at least seven activists before the flame's arrival.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, In Egypt state
news agency MENA said Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo for
talks with Egyptian security officials have agreed to an Egyptian
proposal for a truce with Israel starting in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Baghdad sent a
delegation to Tehran with "evidence, confessions and pictures"
indicating that Iran is supplying weapons and training fighters who
are locked in a violent standoff with US and Iraqi troops. PM
al-Maliki accused the Mahdi Army of using civilians as human
shields, and vowed to continue the crackdown against militias. 2
people were killed and 16 wounded overnight in Sadr City. Clashes in
Baghdad killed at least 25 people. 3 US soldiers were killed in
Baghdad. A US soldier was killed by an explosion in Ninevah
province.
(AP, 4/30/08)(AP, 5/1/08)(SFC, 5/1/08, p.A2)
2008 Apr 30, Ethiopian troops
allied to Somalia's shaky government opened fire on civilians in a
street in southwestern Somalia, killing 13 after an explosion there
killed two soldiers.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, An official said
Nepal will give the families of the 13,000 people killed in the
country's decade-long civil war more than 1,500 dollars each in
compensation.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, In Niger a summit
of nine west African states convened in Niamey to consider a
proposed 20-year, 5.5 billion euro (8.6 billion dollar) program to
rescue the Niger River from extinction and guarantee the future of
110 million people.
(AFP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, In the southern
Philippines troops captured a camp that housed a bomb-making factory
of al-Qaida-linked militants after heavy fighting.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, It was reported
that the value of spinner dolphin teeth in the Solomon Islands has
appreciated 400% in the last year from about .065 US cents to 26 US
cents. Dolphin teeth have been used there for centuries as currency.
(WSJ, 4/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
southern Sudan and called for demarcation of the contested oil-rich
border region between the north and south.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, President Hugo
Chavez ordered the expropriation of Sidor, Venezuela's largest steel
maker, after attempts by the government to acquire a majority stake
in the company failed. Chavez said Venezuela will turn Siderurgica
del Orinoco, which was controlled by Luxembourg-based Ternium SA.,
into "a socialist company."
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, Zimbabwe said it
has decided to float its local currency on foreign exchange markets
in an attempt to eliminate speculation on the black market. Farmers
tore up their tobacco crop in protest on the auction floors of
Harare as state price controls to combat hyperinflation threatened
to wipe out their profits. An unidentified senior official with
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party said results from the March 29
election gave opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai 47% of the votes
while Mugabe trailed with 43%.
(AP, 4/30/08)(AP, 5/1/08)
2009 Apr 30, Obama
administration officials said Chrysler will file for bankruptcy
protection after overnight talks broke down with a small group of
the company's creditors.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chrysler filed for
bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small
group of the company's creditors. Canada's government said it will
take an ownership stake in Chrysler in exchange for more than $2
billion in loans, under a sweeping North American rescue plan.
Ottawa and Washington demanded the Detroit company partner with Fiat
as a condition for funding.
(AP, 4/30/09)(Reuters, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Illinois Ali
al-Marri (43) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide
material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. A
second charge of providing material support or resources to a
foreign terrorist organization was dropped. His case had sparked a
legal debate over whether the government can hold terrorism suspects
indefinitely. The Qatar native faced up to 15 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine at his July 30 sentencing. On Oct 29 a federal judge
sentenced Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 10/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, The San Francisco
Municipal Railway announced plans to raise adult bus and streetcar
fares, effective July 1, by 50 cents to $2.00, the largest one-time
raise in nearly a century. Sweeping service cuts were also approved.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 30, In Texas Derrick
Lamone Johnson was executed for the 1999 rape and murder of LaTausha
Curry (25) abducted while she trying to make a call at a pay phone.
He was the 14th Texas prisoner executed this year.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, In Wisconsin Shane
Kettner (36) was arrested in Nelsonville for killing his estranged
girlfriend and 2 of their children.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 30, In Azerbaijan
Georgian citizen Farda Gadyrov (20) opened fire at the prestigious
oil industry academy in Baku, killing 12 people and wounding 13
before turning the gun on himself.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Belgium stripped
the credentials of 2 high-ranking members of Russia’s permanent
mission to NATO and expelled them on accusations of espionage.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Brazil's Supreme
Court struck down a 1967 press censorship law enacted during the
military dictatorship. In a 7-4 vote the court ruled the law
unconstitutionally violated freedom of expression.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, British forces
formally ended combat operations in Iraq, one month ahead of
schedule. A solemn ceremony remembered 179 dead comrades from six
years of warfare.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In Beijing Japan’s
PM Taro Aso called for Tokyo and Beijing to unite in facing the
world's environmental and economic challenges, while playing down
concerns over China's military power.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chinese state
media reported that China has reopened its land border to tourists
traveling to North Korea after a three-year break, with a group of
71 tourists visiting the isolated country earlier this week on a one
day tour of Sinuiju.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In India millions
cast their votes in the third wave of month-long elections, with
security tight as the staggered polls took in the Kashmir Valley and
the financial capital Mumbai.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The Iraqi
government decided to kill three wild boars at the Baghdad Zoo amid
worldwide fears of swine flu. No date was set for their killing. Two
US Marines and a sailor were killed during combat operations in
Anbar province.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican health
authorities said they confirmed 300 swine flu cases and 12 deaths
due to the virus among a total of 679 people tested so far.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican
authorities detained 12 federal police investigators accused of
leaking information to hit men who ambushed and killed 8 officers on
April 18 in a failed attempt to free a high level drug cartel
member.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In the Netherlands
5 people died when a car slammed into a crowd at the Queen's Day
festival attended by members of the royal family in the western city
of Apeldoorn. A policeman as well as the assailant died the next day
from their injuries. The suspect was identified by Dutch media as
Karst Tates (38). Neighbors said Tates recently was fired from his
job as a security guard and was to be evicted from his home in the
small eastern town of Huissen because he could no longer afford the
rent. An injured woman died a week later bringing the total to 7
victims.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Pakistan troops
sent to repel a Taliban advance toward the Pakistani capital killed
14 suspected militants. Troops ousted militants from the Ambela Pass
leading over the mountains into Buner and were inching toward the
north. Militants, who have kidnapped dozens of lightly armed police
and paramilitary troops, had burned a police station farther north
and sealed off the town of Sultanwas.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Peru Ashaninka
and Yines Indians blocked an airport in the central jungle town of
Atalaya as well as two stations on a northern oil pipeline to
protest laws that they say threaten their ancestral land and
resources. Some 15,000 Indians have been protesting since April 9
and planned to start taking over oil and gas rigs. They said laws
passed in December opened the door to privatization of water
resources and jungle land which they used.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Russia signed a
deal with Georgia's two breakaway regions giving Moscow the power to
guard the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a move sharply
criticized in Tbilisi.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Saudi Arabia a
lawyer said an 8-year-old girl has divorced her middle-aged husband
after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for
about $13,000. Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at
home and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a
close ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child
marriage a "clear and unacceptable" violation of human rights.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Sri Lanka's
president rejected international appeals for a cease-fire in his
nation's bloody civil war, as the Tamil Tiger rebels vowed never to
surrender to the advancing government forces.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Turkey's military
said its warplanes struck Kurdish rebel targets overnight in
northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council extended for another year the mandate of UN peacekeepers in
southern Sudan who monitor compliance with a peace deal that ended
Sudan's two-decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Police in the US
Virgin Islands canceled the popular J'ouvert carnival after four
people were wounded in a shooting and two stabbings.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2010 Apr 30, Oil from a leaking
well in the Gulf of Mexico began washing ashore in the southern US
state of Louisiana, threatening an ecological disaster.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In NYC an
indictment was unsealed against Wesam El-Hanafi and Sabirhan
Hasanoff for scheming to provide computer systems expertise and
other goods and services to Al-Qaida. Ion June 18, 2012, Hanafi
pleaded guilty federal charges of conspiracy and providing material
support to a terrorist organization.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A5)(SFC, 6/19/12, p.A8)
2010 Apr 30, In Arkansas
several tornadoes ripped through the state, killing a woman and
injuring two dozen others. Leveled homes, overturned vehicles and
uprooted trees were scattered across central Arkansas.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, Peter Lopez (60),
a successful entertainment attorney who was married to actress
Catherine Bach, was found dead at his home in the Encino Hills, Ca.,
in an apparent suicide.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Mar 30, Jadin Wong
(b.1913), Chinese-American dancer and actress, died. She appeared in
dozens of films including “Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation” (1939).
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.C5)
2010 Apr 30, In southern
Afghanistan foreign troops killed two women and a girl as they
traveled by car.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Albania tens of
thousands of people thronged the main square of Tirana and demanded
a partial recount of the election that the opposition claims
involved vote-rigging.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 30, In Argentina over
2,000 adolescents in schools across the province of Mendoza skipped
classes and met in a plaza in a mass truancy organized on Facebook.
A judge in Mendoza soon ordered Facebook to shut groups created by
minors to organize the truancy.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 30, Shanghai kicked
off the six-month World Expo with a star-studded gala ceremony set
to end in a lavish blaze of fireworks and light along the city's
river-front. The World Expo officially opened on May 1. Closing date
was set for Oct 31.
(AFP, 4/30/10)(AP, 5/1/10)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.42)
2010 Apr 30, A Chinese farmer
attacked kindergarten students with a hammer, injuring five, before
burning himself to death in China's third such assault in as many
days and prompting the government to demand stricter school security
nationwide.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, The EU's foreign
affairs chief Catherine Ashton said that China is willing to discuss
sanctions on Iran as long as they are carefully targeted and bolster
efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Ireland mourned
the shock loss of one of the nation's best-known broadcasters, Gerry
Ryan (53), who was found dead in his Dublin apartment after failing
to broadcast his morning radio show, an Irish institution.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Jordanian doctor
Humam Khalili Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA employees in
a suicide attack in Afghanistan late last year, called on Muslims to
wage jihad and become martyrs in a posthumous message posted on
extremist websites.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Kurdish rebels
killed four Turkish soldiers and wounded seven others in eastern
Turkey in the largest attack on troops in several months.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, Hezbollah's leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in published remarks that Hezbollah can
strike infrastructure deep inside Israel if a new war breaks out,
but refused to confirm whether or not the Lebanon-based militants
have long-range Scud missiles.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Mexican
authorities rescued two journalists who had been stranded for nearly
three days among feuding militants after a caravan of rights
activists was caught in a deadly ambush in southern Oaxaca state.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, A Nigerian court
sentenced six Ghanaians and a Nigerian to 8 years in prison each
after they were found guilty of stealing 4,000 tons of oil products.
Rebels in the restive Niger Delta claimed to have blown up a Shell
pipeline in the creeks of the southern oil producing region and
threatened further attacks.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Pakistan Khalid
Khawaja, a former intelligence officer, was found shot dead in a
northwest tribal region. Khawaja went missing in late March with
another ex-intelligence official, Sultan Amir Tarar, and journalist
Asad Qureshi. There was no word on the fate of the two others.
Pakistani troops pressing an anti-Taliban offensive into a second
month in a lawless tribal district near the Afghan border killed at
least eight militants. Taliban militants blew up a state-run girls'
school in Sadiqabad village in Bajaur, another of Pakistan's seven
tribal districts where militants have destroyed 89 schools.
(AP, 4/30/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Apr 30, Panama police
found an arsenal of assault rifles, grenades and almost a half
million rounds of ammunition at the home of Professor Vinicio
Jimenez, a Guatemalan-born sociology professor. Their raid netted 47
assault rifles, 24 machine pistols, 487,900 rounds of ammunition and
almost 4,000 grenades and grenade-style munitions.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Puerto Rico
regulators shut down three banks that had struggled to stay afloat
during Puerto Rico's grinding, four-year recession. A judge in
Puerto Rico sentenced two former police officers to prison for the
beating death of a suspect who was detained in 2003 for allegedly
stealing a patrol car.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Russia Vera
Trifonova (53), who was reported to have diabetes and chronic kidney
failure, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina jail. Trifonova, the head
of a real estate company, had been jailed since December on fraud
charges. The next day Pres. Medvedev ordered investigators to
determine why another person has died in the same Moscow jail where
lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died last year of an untreated illness.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, In south Sudan at
least seven people were killed after men said to be affiliated with
a defeated candidate in regional elections attacked an army base.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Taiwan carried out
a death sentence for the first time since 2005, executing 4 inmates
as a heated debate rages on the island over whether capital
punishment should be abolished.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2011 Apr 30, In Ohio Randle Lee
Roberts II (27) died in a shootout about a half hour after a girl
found the bodies of her relatives in a home near West Union. The
dead included George Stephens (68), the grandfather of Roberts'
wife. The others were Sonja Stephens (46), Kendra Stephens (34) and
her 11-year-old daughter, Harley.
(AP, 5/1/11)
2011 Apr 30, The Afghan Taliban
announced the beginning of their spring military offensive against
the US-led coalition.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Argentine writer
Ernesto Sabato (b.1911), who led the government's probe of crimes
committed by Argentina's dictatorship, died. His books included "One
and the Universe" (1945), his first novel "The Tunnel" (1948), and
"The Angel of Darkness" (1974).
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Benin held
parliamentary elections. President Boni Yayi's allies won a majority
of seats in parliament following the polls.
(AFP, 5/6/11)
2011 Apr 30, Police in Burkina
Faso said they will end their demonstrations. Some 1,000
demonstrators rallied in the capital to demand the departure of
Pres. Blaise Compaore.
(AP, 4/30/11)(SSFC, 5/1/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 30, Troops from
Cambodia and Thailand exchanged fire at the countries' contested
border, marking the ninth straight day of clashes that have left at
least 16 people dead and displaced nearly 100,000.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, In Denmark the 900
residents of the Christiania hippie enclave in Copenhagen announced
they had agreed in principle to a deal that will allow them to
collectively buy the former naval base they first occupied four
decades ago.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood, the country's best organized movement, announced the
formation of a party to contest up to half of parliament's seats in
a September election.
(AFP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, India's premier
Manmohan Singh urged the country's top police agency to investigate
a series of corruption scandals embroiling his government "without
fear or favor."
(AFP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, In India a
single-engine helicopter, carrying Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister
Dorjee Khandu (56), two other passengers and two pilots, disappeared
in bad weather just 20 minutes after taking off from the Himalayan
Buddhist retreat of Tawang for the state capital, Itanagar. Wreckage
and bodies were found on May 4.
(AP, 5/4/11)(AP, 5/1/11)
2011 Apr 30, Two Iraqi
lawmakers said parliament has approved a $400 million settlement to
Americans who claim they were abused by Saddam Hussein. A judge, his
wife and daughter were killed when their house in Taji was blown up.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Laos held
legislative elections that are expected to sweep in a younger
generation of lawmakers but preserve the political status quo.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi said he was ready for a ceasefire and negotiations
provided NATO "stop its planes," but he refused to give up power as
rebels and Western powers demand. Rebels and NATO rejected the
offer, as Gaddafi’s forces pressed an offensive against the key port
city of Misrata. Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli,
but his youngest son, Seif al-Arab (29), and three grandchildren
under the age of 12 were killed. Gaddafi forces entered the towns of
Jalu and Awlijah opened fire, killing at least five civilians and
wounding more than 10.
(Reuters, 4/30/11)(AFP, 4/30/11)(AP,
4/30/11)(Reuters, 5/1/11)
2011 Apr 30, In northwestern
Pakistan a roadside bomb hit a minibus, killing two passengers and
wounding nine others in the Kurram tribal region.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Syrian army troops
backed by tanks and helicopters took a prominent mosque that had
been controlled by residents in a besieged southern city, killing
four people. Another six people were killed in separate incidents.
138 members of Assad's ruling Baath Party resigned to protest the
crackdown. Troops and snipers killed six civilians as Syrians
prepared to bury scores of people killed in a "day of rage", while
the United States and EU imposed sanctions on Damascus.
(AP, 4/30/11)(AFP, 4/30/11)(AP, 5/1/11)
2011 Apr 30, In Taiwan some
2,000 protesters demanded that the government scrap plans to operate
a newly built nuclear power plant and turn the facility into a
museum to highlight the dangers of nuclear power.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Two Thai troops
died and nine were injured in bombings that struck the restive
south.
(AFP, 4/30/11)
2011 Apr 30, Yemeni forces with
heavy weapons drove hundreds of anti-government protesters out of a
square they had been camping for months in the southern city of
Aden. Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's leader of 32 years, told the GCC
secretary general in a meeting in Sanaa that he had asked a senior
aide to represent him in the signing ceremony in Riyadh.
(AP, 4/30/11)(AP, 5/1/11)
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