Today in History - May 30
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727 May 30,
Hubertus (72), bishop of Tongeren-Maastricht, saint, died.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1220 May 30, Alexander
Nevski, Russian ruler (1252-63), was born.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1381 May 30, English peasant
uprising began in Essex.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1416 May 30, Jerome of Prague was
burned as a heretic by the Church.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1431 May 30, Joan of Arc
(19), condemned as a heretic [as a witch], was burned at the stake in
Rouen, France. A silent movie of her life was made in 1927 by Carl
Theodor Dreyer.
(CFA, '96, p.46)WSJ, 1/23/96, p.A-12)(AP,
5/30/97)(HN, 5/30/98)
1434 May 30, The Battle of Lipany
virtually ended the Hussite Wars. Prokopius leader of Taborites, died
in battle.
(http://tinyurl.com/ckgv5)
1498 May 30, Columbus departed
Spain with 6 ships for his 3rd trip to America. He took 30 women along
on his third trip to the New World.
(V.D.-H.K.p.143)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm)
1527 May 30, University of
Marburg was founded in Germany.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1536 May 30, English king Henry
VIII married Jane Seymour (wife #3).
(MC, 5/30/02)
1539 May 30, Spanish explorer
Hernando de Soto landed at Tampa Bay, Florida, with 600 soldiers in
search of gold. Hernando de Soto returned to the New World at the head
of a 1,000-man expedition into North America. He landed near
present-day Tampa Bay and proceeded through what is now Alabama and
Tennessee, making treaties with some Indian, viciously fighting with
others.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)(AP, 5/30/97)(HN, 5/30/98)(HNQ,
10/11/00)
1588 May 30, Spanish Armada under
Medina-Sidonia departed Lisbon to invade England.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1593 May 30, Christopher Marlowe
(b.Feb 26, 1564), British dramatist (Tamburlaine the Great), poet, was
murdered. Marlowe reportedly died in a barfight. It was later
speculated that his death was faked and that he fled to Italy and
continued writing plays that were produced by Shakespeare. In 2004
Rodney Bolt authored “History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of
Christopher Marlowe.”
(SFC, 1/2/03, p.E11)(www.canterbury.co.uk)(Econ,
9/4/04, p.78)
1640 May 30, Peter Paul Rubens
(b.1577), Flemish painter, died in Antwerp.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/13214c.htm)(Econ, 5/15/04,
p.81)
1672 May 30, Peter I (the
Great) Romanov, great czar (tsar) of Russia (1682-1725), was born. [see
Jun 9]
(HN, 5/30/98)(MC, 5/30/02)
1778 May 30, Voltaire (b.1694),
French writer born as Francois-Marie Arouet, died. His books included
Candide (1759).
(www.online-literature.com/voltaire/)
1783 May 30, The first American
daily newspaper, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, began publishing in
Philadelphia.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1808 May 30, Napoleon annexed
Tuscany and gave it seats in French Senate.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1814 May 30, The First Treaty of
Paris was declared, after Napoleon's first abdication. It returned
France to its 1792 borders and secured for the British definite
possession of the Cape of Good Hope. [see Aug 13]
(HN, 5/30/98)(HN, 5/30/99)(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1846 May 30, Peter Carl Faberge
(d.1920), Russian master jeweler and goldsmith was born (May 18 OS) in
St. Petersburg. His work includes the Imperial Coronation Easter Egg
(1896-1908), an enameled, diamond-studded golden egg about 5 inches
long that opens to reveal a 3-inch-long replica of the carriage that
took the czarina to her coronation in 1896; the rococo Imperial
Catherine the Great Easter Egg (1908-1917) and the Rectangular Box with
a monogram of tiny diamonds (1896-1908).
(SFC, 5/23/96,
p.D1,10)(www.britannica.com/ebi/article?tocId=9274244)
1848 May 30, William Young
patented the ice cream freezer.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1848 May 30, Mexico ratified the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts
of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1854 May 30, The Kansas-Nebraska
Act, designed by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, was passed by the
US Congress. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and
Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery
within their borders. The governor of the Kansas Territory was James
William Denver. Pres. Pierce kept appointing proslavery governors. The
Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened the
north to slavery. This period of Kansas history was incorporated into
the 1998 novel "The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton,"
by Jane Smiley.
(AP, 5/30/97)(WSJ, 2/11/03,
p.A10)(www.historyplace.com/lincoln/kansas.htm)(ON, 4/08, p.1)
1854 May 30, Vermont native
Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) unveiled his invention, the safety
elevator at the New York World's Fair. Audiences gasped as Otis, riding
on the hoist's platform, dramatically ordered the lifting rope cut.
Instead of falling, the car locked safely into the elevator shaft.
Prior to the 1850s there was no existing market for passenger elevators
because there was no safety mechanism in the event of a cable break. In
1852 Otis was a master mechanic working at a bedstead factory in
Yonkers, N.Y., when he built a hoisting machine with two sets of metal
teeth at the car's sides. If the lifting rope broke, the teeth would
lock into place, preventing the car from falling. Otis never realized
the potential of his invention. His sons built the Otis Elevator
Company, enabling the skylines of cities throughout the world to be
transformed with skyscrapers.
(HNPD, 5/30/99)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1859 May 30, The Piedmontese army
crossed the Sesia River and defeated the Austrians at Palestro.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1862 May 30, Confederate
General Beauregard evacuated Corinth, Mississippi and Union troops
under Union General Henry Halleck entered.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1862 May 30, Battle of Front
Royal, VA.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1864 May 30, Battle of Bethesda
Church, VA.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1866 May 30, Bederich Smetana's
Opera "The Bartered Bride" premiered in Prague.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1867 May 30, Arthur Vining
Davis, American industrialist, was born. His foundation later gave
money to the arts.
(HN, 5/30/99)
1868 May 30, Memorial Day
began when two women placed flowers on both Confederate and Union
graves.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1879 May 30, Gilmore Garden in NYC
was renamed Madison Square Garden.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1883 May 30, 12 people were
trampled to death in New York City when a rumor that the recently
opened Brooklyn Bridge was in danger of collapsing triggered a stampede.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1889 May 30, The brassiere
was invented.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1896 May 30, 1st car accident
occurred when Henry Wells hit a bicyclist in NYC.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1899 May 30, Irving G.
Thalberg, legendary MGM production executive, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
(AP, 5/30/99)
1899 May 30, Wilbur Wright
(1867-1912), Ohio bicycle mechanic, wrote the Smithsonian Institution
and affirmed his belief that human flight was possible.
(NPub, 2002,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers)
1900 May 30, It was reported that
9 deaths in Chinatown were caused by Bubonic plague and that 159
policemen had set up a quarantine. In 2003 Marilyn Chase authored “The
Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco.”
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)(SSFC, 1/12/03, p.M2)
1903 May 30, Countee Cullen,
American poet, was born.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1908 May 30, Hannes Alfvén,
Swedish, Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist, was born.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1908 May 30, Mel
Blanc (d.1989), voice of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pig in
Warner Brothers cartoons, was born in San Francisco. When he died he
had "That's All Folks" inscribed on his tombstone.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, Z1 p.8)(AP, 5/30/08)
1908 May 30, 1st federal workmen's
compensation law was approved.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1909 May 30, Benny Goodman
was born. He became a great clarinet player, and big band leader and
was known as the "King of Swing."
(HN, 5/30/99)
1909 May 30, Reuben Siegel laid
the cornerstone of the 1st home in Tel-Aviv.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1911 May 30, The first
long-distance auto race in Indianapolis was won by Ray Harroun. One
driver was killed and the average speed was 74.4 mph. [see May 29]
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)(AP, 5/30/97)
1912 May 30, U.S. Marines
were sent to Nicaragua to protect American interests.
(HN, 5/30/99)
1912 May 30, Wilbur Wright
(b.1867), aeronautical inventor, died of a typhoid infection.
(WUD, 1994, p.1647)(ON, SC, p.4)
1913 May 30, Conclusion of the
First Balkan War. The Treaty of London ended First Balkan War, and the
Second Balkan War began.
(HN, 5/30/98)(www, Albania, 1998)
1913 May 30, New country of
Albania formed.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1916 May 30, Dr. Joseph W.
Kennedy, scientist, discoverer of plutonium, was born.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1916 May 30, Herbert Smith was the
chief designer at Sopwith and came up with the Sopwith Triplane in
1916--the inspiration for other triplanes that followed. In the spring
of 1916, Herbert Smith, the chief designer at Sopwith, began work on a
successor to the well-regarded Sopwith Pup. He set out to design a
plane that could climb faster, fly higher, maneuver as well as if not
better than its predecessor and, if possible, afford better visibility
than the Pup. Surprisingly, the prototype that emerged from the Sopwith
hangar on May 30, 1916, was not a biplane but a triplane. The design
impressed the pilots who flew it and the pilots who flew against it.
Soon many other triplane designs appeared in the skies.
(HNQ, 3/22/01)
1921 May 30, U.S. Navy
transferred Teapot Dome oil reserves to the Department of Interior.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1921 May 30, Salzburg, Austria,
voted to join Germany.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1922 May 30, The Lincoln Memorial
was dedicated in Washington, D.C., by Chief Justice William Howard Taft
and Robert Todd Lincoln. The Memorial has 48 sculptured festoons above
the columns representing the number of states at the time of
dedication. The 36 Doric columns in the Lincoln Memorial represent the
number of states in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death in 1865.
The limestone and marble edifice, which is situated at the western end
of the Mall, was designed by Henry Bacon of North Carolina in the style
of a Greek temple. Daniel Chester French co-designed the memorial with
Bacon.
(HNQ, 2/12/00)(WSJ, 5/24/08, p.W12)(AP, 5/30/08)
1923 May 30, Howard Hanson's 1st
Symphony "Nordic," premiered.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1924 May 30, The Rivoli Theater in
Manhattan opened with a new air-conditioning system developed by Willis
Carrier. This followed 3 successful installation in Texas.
(ON, 8/07, p.11)
1926 May 30, Christine Jorgensen,
pioneer transsexual, was born.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1932 May 31, Socal, formerly
Standard Oil of California, discovered oil in Bahrain. This was the 1st
middle eastern oil discovered by an American firm.
(SFC, 10/20/04,
p.C6)(www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199901/prelude.to.discovery.htm)
1935 May 30, Babe Ruth in his
final game went hitless for Braves against Phillies.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1937 May 30, The Memorial
Day Massacre took place. Ten union demonstrators were killed and 84
wounded when police opened fire in front of the South Chicago Republic
Steel plant. Earlier in 1937 the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee
had secured recognition by U.S. Steel as the workers' bargaining agency
and had won a number of concessions. "Little Steel," under the leader
ship of Republic's Tom Girdler firmly opposed the union demands,
leading to the deadly demonstration. A newsreel film of the Republic
Steel strike riots was made.
(AP, 5/30/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNQ, 5/25/98)
1941 May 30, Serbia enacted
anti-Semitic measures.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1942 May 30, US aircraft carrier
Yorktown left Pearl Harbor.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1942 May 30, The Royal Air
Force launched the first 1,000 plane raid over Germany. 1,047 RAF
bombers bombed Cologne.
(HN, 5/30/98)(MC, 5/30/02)
1942 May 30, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich
Himmler arrived in Prague.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1943 May 30, American
forces secured the Aleutian island of Attu from the Japanese during
World War II.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1943 May 30, Dr. Josef Mengele
arrived at Auschwitz as research assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von
Verschuer.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D6)
1944 May 30, In Rome the ancient
remains of Caligula’s ships, extracted from Lake Nemi, were set ablaze
and destroyed. Blame was cast on German soldiers and American artillery.
(AM, 5/01, p.31)
1951 May 30, Fernando Lugo,
elected president of Paraguay in 2008, was born in a village of the San
Pedro del parana district.
(SSFC, 5/24/09,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Lugo)
1956 May 30, Bus boycott began in
Tallahassee, Florida.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1957 May 30, In California Santa’s
Village, a Christmas theme park, opened in Scotts Valley. It filed for
bankruptcy in 1977 and finally closed in 1979.
(SFC, 5/31/08,
p.B2)(www.santasvillage.net/santas.village.scotts.valley.html)
1958 May 30, Unidentified
soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean conflict were buried at
Arlington National Cemetery.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1959 May 30,
President-Generalissimo Alfredo Stroessner disbanded Paraguay's
parliament and established a dictatorship. Josef Mengele became a
citizen of Paraguay.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1960 May 30, Boris Pasternak
(b.1890), Russian poet, novelist (Dr Zhivago) and translator, died at
age 70.
(WUD, 1994, p.1055)(MC, 5/30/02)
1961 May 30, Rafael Leonides
Trujillo Molina (69), Dominican Republic dictator (1930-61), was
murdered. In his final years he had installed Joaquin Balaguer as vice
president and then as president. Balaguer fled to exile in NYC
following the assassination.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-14)(SFC, 7/15/02, p.B6)(MC,
5/30/02)
1962 May 30, Benjamin Britten's
"War Requiem," premiered.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1964 May 30, Leo Szilard (66),
Hungarian-US nuclear physicist, died.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1965 May 30, Vivian Malone (later
Vivian Malone Jones) became the first black graduate of the University
of Alabama with a degree in Business Management.
(NYT, 10/14/2005, p.C15)
1965 May 30, Viet Cong offensive
began against US base at Da Nang, South Vietnam.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1967 May 30, Robert "Evel" Knievel
on his motorcycle jumped 16 automobiles.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1967 May 30, Biafra declared
independence from Nigeria.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1968 May 30, French Pres. Charles
de Gaulle delivered a forceful televised address in order to regain
control of public opinion, thrown into confusion by the political
events resulting from a student protest.
(www.ena.lu/address_given_charles_gaulle_events_1968_paris_1968-022600052.html)
1968 May 30, Authorities blew up
the University Church in Leipzig, Germany, to make room for the
re¬construction of Karl-Marx-Platz, the city’s main square.
(http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=61806)
1969 May 30, Refinery workers on
Curacao set fires in Willemstad. Marines from the Netherlands restored
order.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.38)
1971 May 30, The American
space probe Mariner 9, the first satellite to orbit Mars, blasted off
from Cape Kennedy, Fla. It later transmitted photos of possible
riverbeds.
(AP, 5/30/97)(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)(HN, 5/30/98)
1972 May 30, Three militants of
the Japanese Red Army (PFL) staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade
attack at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100
injured. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in Israel. The
terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they were arrested.
In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other Japanese Red
Army members were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)
1975 May 30, Steve Prefontaine
(b.1951), American long distance runner, flipped his gold MG and died
at age 24. Tests revealed that he was legally drunk. In 1997 two films
based on his life were released.
(SFC,1/22/97,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Prefontaine)
1977 May 30, Paul Desmond
(b.1924), jazz alto saxophonist, died in NYC.
(http://musicbase.h1.ru/PPB/ppb2/Bio_224.htm)
1980 May 30, In Bangladesh General
Ziaur Rahman was assassinated by dissident army officers.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A9)(www.muktadhara.net/page81.html)
1980 May 30, Pope John Paul
II arrived in France on the first visit by the head of the Roman
Catholic Church since the early 19th century.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1981 May 30, US performed a
nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(http://tinyurl.com/32s5h3)
1981 May 30, In Bangladesh Major
Gen’l. Abdul Manzoor was shot and killed after he led a failed uprising
that killed Pres. Ziaur Rahman 1980. Hussein Mohammed Ershad and 4 army
officers were later accused of the killing.
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/2u8zqz)(AP,
5/30/01)
1982 May 30, Spain became
NATO's 16th member, the first country to enter the Western alliance
since West Germany in 1955.
(AP,
5/30/97)(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1982/index_en.htm)
1985 May 30, The play "Woman in
Mind" by Alan Ayckbourn (b.1936) was first staged in Scarborough at the
Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_In_Mind)
1986 May 30, A tour bus went out
of control on a mountain road and plunged into the Walker River near
the California-Nevada border killing 21 elderly passengers.
(AP, 5/30/06)(www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1987/HAR8704.htm)
1987 May 30, North American
Philips Company unveiled compact disc video.
(http://tinyurl.com/km755)
1987 May 30, A Beastie Boy concert
in Liverpool, England, turned into a riot. Adam Horowitz was charged
with assaulting a fan.
(www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=847)
1987 May 30, Soviet Defense
Minister Sergei L. Sokolov and the chief of Soviet air defenses were
fired, two days after West German pilot Mathias Rust entered Soviet
airspace in a small plane and flew all the way to Moscow's Red Square.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1988 May 30, On the second
day of the Moscow summit, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, giving a
toast at a state dinner, called for closer contacts with Americans,
adding, "This should be done without interfering in domestic affairs,
without sermonizing or imposing one's views and ways."
(AP, 5/30/98)
1989 May 30, US Rep. Claude Pepper
(b.1900), D-Fla., a champion of the nation's elderly, died in
Washington, DC, at age 88.
(AP, 5/30/99)
1989 May 30, Student
demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing erected a 33-foot statue
they called the "Goddess of Democracy."
(AP, 5/30/99)
1989 May 30, In Brazil
landless farmer-workers stormed a farm in the state of Espirito Santo
to pressure for agrarian reform. Jose Machado, the owner, opened fire
with hired guns. Machado and a hired off-duty policeman were killed and
four squatters were injured. In 1997 Jose Rainha, a land reform
advocate, was sentenced to 26.5 years in prison for the killing. Rainha
argued that he was in another state with witnesses and that the
squatters acted in self defense but was still convicted in a 4-3 vote.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A14)
1990 May 30, A 6.3 earthquake in
northern Peru killed 137 people. [see May 29]
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1990 May 30, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in Washington for his summit with
President Bush.
(AP, 5/30/00)
1991 May 30, The US Supreme Court
ruled that prosecutors can be sued for the legal advice they give
police and can be forced to pay damages when that advice leads to
someone’s rights being violated.
(AP, 5/30/01)
1992 May 30, President Bush
ordered the seizure of Yugoslav government assets in the United States
after the United Nations imposed sanctions in an effort to force
Yugoslavia to observe a cease-fire in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1993 May 30, Emerson
Fittipaldi won the 77th Indianapolis 500, driving at an average speed
of 157.2 mph.
(AP, 5/30/98)
1994 May 30, Mormon Church
president Ezra Taft Benson died in Salt Lake City at age 94.
(AP, 5/30/99)
1994 May 30, The U.N.
Security Council warned North Korea to stop refueling a nuclear reactor
and allow U.N. monitors to perform full inspections.
(AP, 5/30/99)
1995 May 30, In a letter to UN
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic demanded guarantees of no further NATO air attacks and de
facto recognition of a self-styled Serb state.
(AP, 5/30/00)
1996 May 30, The House
called off a contempt-of-Congress vote after President Clinton's aides
turned over 1,000 pages of papers and a long-sought list of documents
in the travel office firings.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1996 May 30, Veterinary
researchers have found a way to transplant testicular stem cells from
one animal to another and even from species to species.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A3)
1996 May 30, Britain's
Prince Andrew and the former Sarah Ferguson were granted an uncontested
decree ending their 10-year marriage.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, Par p.C2)(AP, 5/30/97)
1996 May 30, In eastern
Burundi suspected Hutu rebels of the Council for the Defense of
Democracy killed at least 61 and wounded 25 Tutsis.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)
1996 May 30, Voters in
Northern Ireland selected 110 members for a forum on negotiations to
determine its future status. Protestants want their British ties and
majority position secured. Catholic leaders want linkage with the Irish
Republic where they form the overwhelming majority.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A15)
1996 May 30, UN officials
confirmed the statement of Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic that Bosnian
Serbs were expelling Muslims from the Teslic area in central Bosnia.
(SFC, 5/31/96, E1)
1996 May 30, Venezuela’s former
Pres. Carlos Andres Perez was convicted on corruption charges. He was
sentenced to prison for 28-months and fined for misappropriation of $17
million from a secret security spending fund.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A12)
1997 May 30, Child molester
Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, N.J., of raping and
strangling a 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired
"Megan's Law," requiring that communities be notified when sex
offenders move in. Timmendequas was later sentenced to death.
(AP, 5/30/98)
1997 May 30, Jonathan Levin,
31-year-old Bronx high-school teacher, was killed by a former student,
Corey Arthur (19). Arthur and Montoun Hart had withdrawn $800 withdrawn
from an ATM on Mr. Levin’s card. In 1998 Arthur was sentenced 25 years
to life.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)(SFC, 12/11/98,
p.D6)(www.cnn.com/US/9810/20/levin.trial/)
1997 May 30, Canada's 8-mile long
Confederation Bridge, connecting New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island,
was scheduled to be opened. It cost C$1 billion.
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A1)(Econ, 11/29/03, p.34)
1997 May 30, The Swiss
based World Fund for Nature said that the few thou sand remaining
tigers in the world were dying off at a rate of one per day.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1998 May 30, A tornado tore
through Spencer, S.D., killing six people. It destroyed 90% of the town.
(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A1)(AP, 5/30/99)
1998 May 30, An estimated 6.9
earthquake hit northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Shari Basurkh was
hit hardest and some estimates put the death toll up to 3,000. The
estimated deaths later reached 5,000.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A2)(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A1)(AP, 6/22/02)
1998 May 30, In Indonesia
the government cancelled tax breaks for a "national car" program run by
Suharto's son, Hutomo Madala Putra, and with four port-service
contracts owned by Hutomo. Economic contraction was feared to reach
10-20%.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A21)
1998 May 30, In Japan the
4-year-old governing coalition fractured and the Social Democratic
Party announced it would go it alone. The Liberal Democratic Party
continued to run the government.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A26)
1998 May 30, Pakistan set
off a nuclear bomb, the 6th test in 3 days.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A15)
1998 May 30, In South Korea
thousands of union members and students marched through Seoul to
protest recent job losses and restructuring demands by the IMF.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A22)
1999 May 30, Astronauts from the
space shuttle “Discovery” rigged cranes and other tools to the exterior
of the international space station during a spacewalk; then, the
astronauts entered the orbiting outpost for three days of making
repairs and delivering supplies.
(AP, 5/30/00)
1999 May 30, Kenny Brack won the
crash-marred Indianapolis 500, driving a car owned by racing legend
A.J. Foyt.
(AP, 5/30/00)
1999 May 30, NATO warplanes bombed
a bridge in Varvarin, Serbia, and 9 civilians were reported killed and
28 wounded. A convoy of Western journalists was also hit and a driver
was killed.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A1)
1999 May 30, In Belarus at least
54 people, mostly teen-age girls, were killed in a stampede near an
underground passageway in Minsk as they left a concert by a local beer
company due to a sudden heavy rain.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A10)
1999 May 30, In Chile Ricardo
Lagos won the presidential primary to represent the center left
governing coalition against Joaquin Lavin on Dec. 12.
(WSJ, 6/1/99, p.A1)
1999 May 30, In Colombia suspected
ELN rebels kidnapped some 140 churchgoers in Cali and later abandoned
at least 84.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A8)(SFC, 6/1/99, p.a6)
1999 May 30, In Kashmir Indian
fighter jets pounded militants in the Kargil sector for the 5th day.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A10)
1999 May 30, In Nigeria fighting
broke out among members of the Itsekiri, Urhobo and Ijaw tribes in the
Niger River delta.
(SFC, 8/24/99, p.A10)
2000 May 30, Last Monday of the
month. Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day, was set
aside to remember those who have died in the service of their country.
Celebrated on May 30 for the first 100 years, Memorial Day was
officially changed to the last Monday in May in 1968.
(HNPD, 5/31/99)
2000 May 30, Pres. Clinton
traveled to Portugal for talks with the EU and met with Pres. Jorge
Sampaio at the Belem Palace outside of Lisbon. Clinton opened a
week-long visit to Europe.
(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A10)(AP, 5/30/01)
2000 May 30, It was reported that
a US government study indicated a direct link between smoking and gum
disease.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A4)
2000 May 30, It was reported that
physicists had conducted experiments in which light beams appeared to
travel faster that the speed of light.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A2)
2000 May 30, Former Pennsylvania
Governor Robert P. Casey died in Scranton at age 68.
(AP, 5/30/01)
2000 May 30, Gordon “Tex” Beneke,
a singer and sax player with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, died in Costa
Mesa, California, at age 86.
(AP, 5/30/01)
2000 May 30, Three crew members of
the Maria Estela skiff, enroute from Guatemala to Belize, killed at
least 5 people and threw survivors overboard into the Gulf of Honduras.
3 of 10 passengers survived.
(SFC, 6/1/00, p.A15)
2000 May 30, Ethiopia and Eritrea
opened peace talks in Algeria.
(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A10)
2000 May 30, In Japan it was
reported that the Bandai Corp., a major toy maker, had begun offering
employees $10,000 for every baby after their 2nd child due to low
national birth rate.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A14)
2001 May 30, Moses Malone and
college coaches Mike Krzyzewski and John Chaney entered the Basketball
Hall of Fame.
(AP, 5/30/02)
2001 May 30, Pres. Bush spoke from
Sequoia National Park and renewed his campaign promise to spend $4.9
billion to restore the nation’s national parks and to protect "these
works of God" and other natural treasures from mankind.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A1)(AP, 5/30/02)
2001 May 30, In France Roland
Dumas, a former foreign minister, was sentenced to 6 months in jail for
corruption. Alfred Sirven, 2nd in command at Elf, was sentenced to 4
years in jail along with a fine. Loik Le Floch-Prigent, former Elf
president was sentenced to 3 ½ years in jail; along with a fine.
Christine Deviers-Joncour was sentenced to 3 years in jail with half
suspended.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A12)
2001 May 30 In Germany lawmakers
gave the final approval for $4.5 billion in payments to the last
uncompensated Nazi victims of slave labor.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A12)
2001 May 30, In Indonesia the
parliament voted to begin impeachment proceedings against Pres. Wahid.
Lawmakers called on a special assembly to end his 19-month tenure.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A12)(WSJ, 5/31/01, p.A1)
2001 May 30, Libya flew troops and
weapons to the Central African Republic to help Pres. Patasse to put
down a coup attempt.
(WSJ, 5/31/01, p.A1)
2001 May 30, In Russia Pres. Putin
ousted the head Gazprom and installed an ally to head the natural gas
monopoly.
(WSJ, 5/31/01, p.A1)
2002 May 30, Attorney General John
Ashcroft issued new terror-fighting guidelines allowing FBI agents to
visit Internet sites, libraries, churches and political organizations
as part of an effort to pre-empt terrorist strikes.
(AP, 5/30/03)
2002 May 30, In NYC a solemn,
wordless ceremony was held to mark the end of the cleanup at the World
Trade Center site.
(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/30/03)
2002 May 30, In Oregon 3 of 9
hikers were killed while climbing Mt. Hood. A Pave Hawk rescue
helicopter crashed in an attempt to rescue the climbers.
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A1)
2002 May 30, In Algeria
legislative elections for the 380-seat parliament were held. 2 key
parties planned to boycott as did many ethnic Berbers of the Kabylia
region. Islamic militants massacred 23 nomads. Berber riots took place.
The national Liberation Front of PM Ali Benflis won 199 of 389 seats.
The turnout was just 46%.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A7)(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A12)(SFC,
6/1/02, p.A12)
2002 May 30, It was reported that
China was embarking on a program to inoculate its poorest people
against hepatitis. Half of the population was reported to have had the
disease with 120 million long term carriers.
(WSJ, 5/30/02, p.A1)
2002 May 30, In Greece civil
servants staged a 1-day national strike to protest government welfare
and tax reforms.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.C11)
2002 May 30, In India violence
resumed in Gujarat state. In Kadi a Muslim bus driver was dragged from
his bus and burned alive and a Hindu man was killed in a bomb blast.
(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A12)
2002 May 30, Israeli forces
entered Nablus and raided Hebron and Jenin.
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.A1)
2002 May 30, It was reported that
dynamite fishing in the Philippines has put the native coral reefs on
the verge of collapse.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A1)
2002 May 30, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat signed the Basic Law package that granted his people basic
rights and regulated government operations.
(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A10)
2002 May 30, In Turkey police
found the bodies of 19 suspected illegal immigrants who had apparently
attempted to enter during the winter from Iran.
(SFC, 5/31/02, p.A12)
2003 May 30, President Bush began
a 6-nation tour in Krakow, Poland, and brought personal thanks to the
country for standing up as a wartime ally in Iraq.
(AP, 5/30/03)(SFC, 5/31/03, p.A14)
2003 May 30, The US government
lowered the terrorist threat level from orange to yellow.
(SFC, 5/31/03, p.A3)
2003 May 30, A rebel ambush and
other attacks killed five Russian soldiers and wounded 11 others in and
around the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 May 30, In Myanmar a
pro-government drunken mob of some 3,000 ambushed a 400-person convoy
carrying Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her National League for
Democracy. At least 70 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/12/03, p.A6)(SFC, 7/5/03, p.A16)
2003 May 30, In northern Spain a
car bomb, allegedly placed by Basque separatists, exploded
killing two police officers.
(AP, 5/30/03)
2003 May 30, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously authorized the deployment of a French-led
international force in northeastern Congo, the scene of ethnic fighting.
(AP, 5/30/04)
2004 May 30, Buddy Rice won the
Indianapolis 500 in the rain.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2004 May 30, In Hawaii lava from
the Kilauea eruption, which began Jan. 3, 1983, reached the ocean for
the first time in nearly a year on May 30.
(AP, 6/12/04)
2004 May 30, Australians have been
warned they face an environmental crisis unless they stop squandering
scarce water resources in the world's most arid inhabited continent.
(AFP, 5/30/04)
2004 May 30, In southwest China a
landslide triggered by torrential rains buried a village in Guizhou
province, killing 8 people.
(AP, 6/1/04)
2004 May 30, Ousted Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left Jamaica for South Africa, saying
it would be his "temporary home" until he could return to Haiti.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2004 May 30, An Israeli air strike
killed Wael Nassar (38), a top Hamas commander, along with his
assistant and a bystander in Gaza City.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.A9)
2004 May 30, In Pakistan gunmen
killed Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a senior pro-Taliban cleric, sparking
riots across Karachi city by thousands of his Sunni Muslim supporters
who ransacked shops, banks and a police station.
(AP, 5/30/04)
2004 May 30, Saudi commandos
stormed the expatriate resort of Khobar to free up to 60 foreign
hostages seized by Islamic militant gunmen who had attacked oil
industry compounds, killing 22 people. Americans were among those
killed and taken captive. 3 suspects escaped.
(AP, 5/31/04)(WSJ, 6/1/04, p.A1)
2005 May 30, Quoting letters of
the fallen from the war in Iraq, President Bush vowed to a Memorial Day
audience at Arlington National Cemetery that America would honor its
dead by striving for peace and democracy, no matter the cost.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2005 May 30, Natalee Holloway
disappeared on the last night of a trip to Aruba to celebrate her
graduation from an Alabama high school.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 May 30, In Afghanistan
Taliban militants claimed responsibility for a bicycle bomb aimed at a
NATO-led vehicle which wounded at least 7 Afghans and a rocket which
slammed into the peacekeeping force's base in Kabul.
(AFP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, US-led warplanes and
troops killed up to 9 suspected Taliban rebels after the militants
launched 3 attacks in quick succession on Afghan and US-led coalition
forces.
(AFP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 30, In Graz, Austria, the
body of a slain infant was found at an apartment complex. 3 more soon
discovered: 2 stuffed in a basement freezer, one entombed in a paint
bucket filled with concrete and one in a plastic bag beneath debris in
a garden shed.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 May 30, Miss Canada, Natalie
Glebova, was crowned Miss Universe in the 54th annual pageant held in
the Thai capital of Bangkok.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 30, China scrapped
concessions meant to avert a trade war with the US and Europe,
withdrawing a plan to sharply increase export duties on Chinese-made
textiles that are flooding foreign markets. The turnaround followed new
import controls imposed by Washington and the EU, which China's
commerce minister called a violation of WTO rules.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, President Jacques
Chirac began a widely expected government shakeup to save face at home
as European Union officials worked to control damage after French
voters rejected the EU's first constitution.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, Germany's
conservative opposition nominated Angela Merkel, a former chemistry
researcher who entered politics during the collapse of communism, as
its challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, Indonesia's first
polio outbreak in a decade widened with two new cases reported, as the
government kicked off a massive eradication campaign that aims to
vaccinate 6.4 million children in one day.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, In Iraq 2 suicide
bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of police officers in Hilla,
south of Baghdad, killing 31 people and wounding 108, while US forces
mistakenly detained a Sunni political leader on the 2nd day of an
Iraqi-led security sweep in the capital.
(AP, 5/30/05)(SFC, 5/31/05, p.A1)
2005 May 30, In Iraq separate air
crashes killed 4 American and 4 Italian troops.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 30, The Israeli military
targeted rocket launchers just before an attack was to be launched from
northern Gaza, and two launchers were destroyed.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, Officials in Lebanon
announced that Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated former premier
Rafik Hariri, had swept parliamentary elections in Beirut.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2005 May 30, Nicaragua President
Enrique Bolanos issued an emergency decree, allowing him to raise
electricity prices as demanded by producers.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30, In Pakistan a blast
ripped through a Shiite Muslim mosque in the southern city of Karachi,
leaving at least 4 people dead, 3 of them the attackers, and a dozen
injured in a suspected suicide bombing.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 30-31, In Pakistan a mob
angered by an al-Qaida-linked suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque set a
KFC restaurant afire in overnight rioting, killing six employees and
bringing the day's overall death toll to 11. Police in southern
Pakistan later arrested eight Shiite Muslims for attacking the KFC
restaurant.
(AP, 5/31/05)(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 May 30, Russia agreed to
begin withdrawing its troops from two Soviet-era bases in Georgia this
year, resolving one of the most serious disputes between Moscow and its
pro-Western neighbor.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2006 May 30, Treasury Secretary
John Snow resigned, allowing President Bush to nominate Goldman Sachs
Chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr. (b.1946) as his replacement.
(AP, 5/30/06)(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)
2006 May 30, US Air Force Gen.
Michael Hayden was sworn in as CIA director.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 30, John Allen Muhammad
was convicted of 6 Maryland sniper killings. He was already condemned
to death in Virginia for his 2002 murder spree. On June 1 he was
sentenced to 6 consecutive life terms without parole.
(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A5)
2006 May 30, The FBI said it had
found no trace of Jimmy Hoffa after digging up a suburban Detroit horse
farm.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 30, The Pentagon said
that the Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency seems likely to hold
its strength the rest of the year, and some of its leaders are now
collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, Actor Robert
Sterling (88), who appeared in the ghostly 1950s comedy series
"Topper," died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 30, Afghanistan's
parliament approved a nonbinding motion calling on the government to
prosecute the US soldiers responsible for a deadly road crash that
sparked the worst riots in Kabul in years.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 30, A missionary group
said more than one-quarter of Brazil's isolated Indian tribes face
extinction unless the government defines their boundaries and gives
them control of their land.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, In Bulgaria more than
10,000 people protested in the streets of Sofia to demand changes in
the government's economic and social policy, which they blame for the
country's rising cost of living.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, A nationwide protest
by Chilean high school students demanding school reforms turned violent
as police struggling to contain hundreds of raucous marchers opened
fire with tear gas and water cannons. Some 600,000 pupils, backed by
university students, teachers and many parents, walked out of classes.
(AP, 5/30/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.35)
2006 May 30, In East Timor
machete-wielding mobs torched homes and ransacked buildings in Dili as
desperate residents scuffled over scarce food and the president said he
was taking over "sole responsibility" for the country's national
security.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, In Gambia Lamin Cham,
who works for the BBC's Africa service, was taken into custody by
authorities as part of a government crackdown on a US-based Web site,
Freedom Newspaper. Cham was released June 6. Authorities continued to
hold 2 other journalists.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 May 30, India's government
threatened to fire hundreds of government doctors striking to protest
an affirmative action plan for low-caste Hindus and said replacements
would prop up crippled medical services.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, Iran's foreign
minister said that Tehran is ready to restart negotiations with the
European Union on its nuclear program, but he ruled out direct talks
with the US.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, Iraq's prime minister
held meetings aimed at finding new defense and interior ministers. A
bomb hidden in a plastic bag detonated outside a bakery in east
Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10. Car bombs
targeting Shiite areas devastated a bustling outdoor market and an auto
dealership, part of a relentless onslaught that killed 54 people and
prompted the US to deploy more troops to combat insurgents in western
Iraq.
(AP, 5/30/06)(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 30, Israel launched its
first ground military operation inside the Gaza Strip since it pulled
out of the region nearly a year ago, killing three members of a
Palestinian rocket squad and a policeman in a fierce battle.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 30, In South Korea Daewoo
Group founder Kim Woo-Choong (69) was sentenced to 10 years in prison
for fraud and embezzlement relating to the collapse of the firm under
82 billion dollars of debt in one of the world's largest corporate
failures. Kim Woo-Choong had admitted to accounting fraud and
embezzlement worth over $30 million.
(AFP, 5/30/06)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.9)
2006 May 30, Emirati authorities
said Naji Nuaimi, an Emirati diplomat held hostage in Iraq since May
16, has been released without ransom.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2007 May 30, US President George
W. Bush officially nominated Robert Zoellick, the former US deputy
secretary of state, to be new World Bank president, describing him as a
"committed internationalist."
(Reuters, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Robert Alan Soloway
(27), described as one of the world's most prolific spammers, was
arrested in Seattle, Wa. Federal authorities said computer users across
the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Microsoft introduced
a computer designed like a table with a touch-screen called Surface. It
was aimed for use in hotels and casinos.
(WSJ, 5/30/07, p.B1)
2007 May 30, Motorola announced
plans to cut 7,500 jobs and reduce costs by $1 billion through the end
of this year and next. The company also announced that a shareholder
proposal to have a say on executive pay passed by 51.8%.
(WSJ, 5/31/07, p.A3)
2007 May 30, Global banking giant
HSBC donated 50 million pounds (73.5 million euros, 98.8 million
dollars) to set up a "green task force" to tackle climate change
worldwide. HSBC teamed up with The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute,
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and WWF to provide
conservation managers and policy makers with the latest research.
(AFP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Mark Harris (b.1922
as Mark Harris Finkelstein), American author, died in Goleta, Ca. His
13 novels and 5 nonfiction books included “Bang The Drum Slowly”
(1956), a baseball novel that he adopted for the 1973 movie of the same
name.
(SFC, 6/1/07, p.B9)
2007 May 30, A Saudi Arabian
detainee died at Guantanamo Bay prison and the US military said he
apparently committed suicide.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Afghan and US-led
coalition forces clashed with Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan,
leaving six suspected insurgents dead and one wounded. A roadside bomb
killed four policemen and wounded another in the southern province of
Uruzgan. A CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by Taliban militants
in an attack that killed everyone on board, five US soldiers, a
Canadian and a Briton. In western Farah province, insurgents attacked
the Pusht Rod district, and ensuing clashes with police left 10
militants dead and 15 wounded.
(AP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Afghanistan and
Pakistan agreed to increase cooperation after meeting with Group of
Eight foreign ministers amid concerns that enmity between the neighbors
is helping the Taliban inflict mounting losses on NATO troops and
Afghan civilians.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Ontario and
California leaders said they will work together to develop new stem
cell therapies to help conquer cancer, and will cooperate on curbing
greenhouse gas emission.
(Reuters, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, In the northwest
corner of Central African Republic soldiers set fire to hundreds of
houses in retaliation for the killing of a local official by
unidentified gunmen. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that
about 420 children die each week, and that escalating conflict between
the CAR government and rebel groups has forced some 212,000 people to
flee their homes in recent years.
(AFP, 6/4/07)
2007 May 30, Chinese stocks
plunged after the government raised a tax on share trades, trying to
cool a market boom amid growing concerns about a possible bubble. The
stamp tax was tripled to 0.3%. The port city of Xiamen announced a
decision to temporarily suspend construction of a petrochemical plant
after nearly a million text messages were sent protesting its
construction.
(AP, 5/30/07)(WSJ, 5/31/07, p.A8)(Econ, 6/2/07, p.82)
2007 May 30, Cuba agreed to buy
$118 million in US food products ranging from pork and corn to soybeans
and Spam, and said it was negotiating deals that could bring the total
to nearly $150 million.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Officials said one of
the world's largest slums, a filthy shantytown in western India, will
be razed and replaced with free homes for Mumbai's poor in a
multi-billion dollar project by a private developer.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Indonesian marines
shot and killed five people on Java island during a violent protest
over a plot of land allegedly owned by the force.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Iranian troops killed
10 militants in ongoing clashes in the country's northwest, near the
border with Turkey.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Hundreds of Iraqi and
US troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad's Sadr City slum and
conducted a series of raids after five British citizens were abducted
from a nearby government building. 2 civilians were killed and four
others injured in crossfire from gunbattles that broke out in one of
the raids. Several mortar rounds apparently targeting an American
military base in Fallujah missed their mark and landed instead on a
courthouse and in a residential neighborhood, killing 9 civilians and
wounding 15 others. A police commander's convoy was struck by a
roadside bomb in Hamzah, south of Baghdad, killing two guards and
injuring two others. Gunmen in 3 cars ambushed 3 soldiers who had
stopped to drink orange juice in the center of Karbala, and stole the
nearly $396,000 in salaries they were transporting to their unit. In
Amarah gunmen mowed down Nazar Abdul-Wahid (33), an Iraqi journalist,
as he stood on a city street. Over 25 people were killed across Iraq
and the bodies of 25 men, all shot to death, were found in different
parts of Baghdad. 3 US soldiers were killed in a roadside bombings in
Baghdad.
(AP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)(SFC, 5/31/07, p.A12)(AP,
6/2/07)
2007 May 30, A group of
internationally renowned Israeli authors and university presidents
demanded that Israel grant Palestinian students from the Gaza Strip
free movement to superior universities in the West Bank.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Medical officials in
Kyrgyzstan confirmed that PM Almazbek Atambayev was poisoned after
receiving death threats but said they have not yet identified the toxin.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, A UN resolution gave
the Lebanese parliament a last chance to establish a tribunal to
prosecute the killers of former PM Rafik Hariri. If it doesn't act by
June 10, the UN decision will automatically "enter into force." A
military judge filed terrorism charges against 20 suspected members of
an Islamic militant group fighting Lebanese troops at a Palestinian
refugee camp.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Malaysia's top civil
court rejected a woman's appeal to be recognized as a Christian, in a
landmark case that tested the limits of religious freedom in this
moderate Islamic country. A three-judge Federal Court panel ruled by a
2-1 majority that only the Islamic Shariah Court has the power to allow
her to remove the word "Islam" from the religion category on her
government identity card. Judge Richard Malanjum, the only non-Muslim
on the panel, sided with Lina Joy, saying it was "unreasonable" to ask
her to turn to the Shariah Court because she could face criminal
prosecution there.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Moroccans were able
to access the video sharing Web site YouTube for the first time since
access was blocked last week.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Nepal some 10,000
Bhutanese refugees demonstrated at the India-Nepal border, where a day
earlier Indian troops had opened fire, killing one refugee.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, It was reported
that coffee shops licensed to sell marijuana in the southern
Dutch city of Maastricht will begin fingerprinting customers and
scanning their IDs this summer to help prove they're following rules
governing such sales.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In southern Nigeria 4
American oil workers abducted three weeks ago were released.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Pakistan a court
sentenced Younis Masih (29), a Christian, to death under Pakistan's
blasphemy laws. Masih was arrested in Sep 2005 on the outskirts of the
eastern city of Lahore after residents told police he made derogatory
remarks against Islam and Muhammad. Masih has said that dozens of
Muslims had thrashed him on Sept. 10, 2005, when he asked them not to
sing loudly because his nephew had died, and his body was still lying
at home.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 30, Senegalese President
Abdoulaye Wade, host of the Islamic Development Bank’s annual meeting,
spoke on behalf of the bank’s launch of a $10 billion fund to combat
poverty in developing Muslim nations in Africa and other parts of the
world. Saudi Arabia pledged to contribute $1 billion, Kuwait $300
million, Iran $100 million and Senegal $10 million.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Outgoing British PM
Tony Blair arrived in the small west African nation of Sierra Leone on
the second leg of a three-nation African tour.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Somalia Ethiopian
troops shot and killed five bystanders after a land mine exploded as
their convoy passed through the center of a western Somali town.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Two senior officials
with Thailand's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party were found guilty of election
fraud in a ruling that could doom the political powerhouse founded by
ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra. A court disbanded the political party of
Shinawatra, barring him and 110 party executives from politics for five
years due to election law violations.
(AFP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Turkish police
captured 11 suspected al-Qaida militants who allegedly were planning to
stage terrorist attacks in Istanbul.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Venezuela a top
opponent of President Hugo Chavez demanded the release of jailed
protesters as university students poured into the streets for a third
day to protest the removal of a leading opposition TV station from the
air.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2008 May 30, The US State
Department said the US and Libya have agreed to try to resolve
compensation claims from the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other incidents
Washington views as acts of terrorism by Libya.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 30, In Florida 2 veteran
police officers were charged with providing protection for purported
shipments of cocaine and stolen goods in what was actually an
undercover FBI operation.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, A jury in Syracuse,
NY, found Hewlett-Packard guilty of infringing a patent for data
processing held by Cornell Univ. and ordered the company to pay Cornell
$184 million.
(SFC, 6/4/08, p.C5)
2008 May 30, A construction crane
collapsed on New York's Upper East Side, smashing into a 23-story
apartment building before crashing onto the street below and killing
two workers.
(AP, 5/30/08)(SFC, 5/31/08, p.A3)
2008 May 30, Afghan forces
recaptured Bakwa, a remote district in the southwestern province of
Farah, which was captured eight months ago. Authorities said they have
killed more than 100 Taliban-linked militants in the operation.
(AFP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 30, Agathon Rwasa, the
exiled leader of Burundi's last rebel group, returned to the capital to
begin implementing a stalled deal seen as the final obstacle to peace
in the tiny central African country.
(Reuters, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, In Honduras a Grupo
Taca Airbus A320 overshot a runway and raced onto a busy street in
Tegucigalpa, killing the pilot, two passengers and a motorist on the
ground. At least 65 people were injured.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 30, In India police fired
on protesters from one of the lower castes in western Rajasthan,
killing two people and bringing the death toll to 43 after a week of
violence.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Diplomats from 111
nations, meeting in Ireland, formally adopted a landmark treaty banning
cluster bombs after futile calls for participation by the weapons'
biggest makers and users, particularly the United States. Participants
planned to sign the treaty in the Oslo, Norway, in December. It would
go into effect in mid-2009.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Tens of thousands of
Shiites, meanwhile, took to the streets in Baghdad and other cities to
protest plans for a long-term security agreement with the United
States. The rallies after Friday prayer services were the first to
follow a call by anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for weekly protests
against the deal. The US military removed a trooper from duty for
handed out coins promoting Christianity to Muslims in Fallujah.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Italy declared a
state of emergency in the north of the country after flooding and
mudslides left at least three people dead in heavy rains that also hit
Belgium, Britain, France and Germany.
(AFP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, In Japan participants
closed a 3-day African development conference saying they aim to double
rice production in Africa in 10 years and expand irrigated land by 20
percent in five years.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Jordan and France
signed an agreement to help the Arab kingdom develop its nuclear energy
program.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Myanmar's ruling
junta lashed out at foreign aid donors, saying cyclone victims did not
need supplies of "chocolate bars" and could instead survive by eating
frogs and fish.
(AFP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Tropical Storm Alma
weakened to a tropical depression after slamming into Nicaragua's coast
the day before, forcing tens of thousand of people to evacuate and
flooding low-lying areas before pushing into neighboring Honduras.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Palestinian doctors
said Israel troops opened fire and wounded 7 Palestinians in a
demonstration at a crossing into Israel.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Sri Lanka’s Tigers
repelled an army advance into rebel-held areas of Vavuniya and Mannar,
killing 31 troops and wounding at least 52 in several clashes according
to Tamilnet.com. The rebels condemned government moves to devolve more
power to the north and east
(AFP, 5/31/08)
2008 May 30, In Yemen a gunman
opened fire in a mosque in a predominantly Shiite northern town,
killing at least 8 worshippers and wounding dozens. Police detained the
attacker.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 30, Zimbabwe’s opposition
declared itself the new ruling party and convened what if called a
session of Parliament.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A1)
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