Today in History - July 30
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30 BC Jul 30,
Mark Antony, lover of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII and claimant to
the Roman throne, stabbed himself when faced with certain defeat at the
hands of his rival Octavian. Antony expected to be named the heir to
Rome after the assassination of his friend and confidant Julius Caesar,
but had not counted on Caesar naming his adopted son Octavian as his
successor. Shaken by his loss at Actium and abandoned by his allies,
Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra followed him in death shortly
afterward when she allowed herself to be bitten by a venomous asp.
(HNPD, 7/30/98)
579 Jul 30, Pope Benedict I died.
(PTA, 1980, p.124)
762 Jul 30, A Persian astrologer,
selected by caliph al-Mansur (the Victorious), selected this day as
propitious for breaking ground for the city of Baghdad. Al-Mansur was
one of the founders of the Abassid dynasty.
(WSJ, 2/14/09, p.W8)
1178 Jul 30, Frederick I
(Barbarossa), Holy Roman Emperor, was crowned King of Burgundy.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1419 Jul 30, Anti-Catholic
Hussites, followers of executed reformer Jan Huss, stormed the town
hall in Prague and threw 3 Catholic consuls and 7 citizens out
the window. This episode has been called "The Defenestration in
Prague." The out-the-window gentlemen all landed safely in a manure
pile.
(NH, 9/96, p.23)(MC, 7/30/02)
1511 Jul 30, Giorgio Vasari
(d.1574), Italy, painter, architect and art historian (Vasari's Lives),
was born. He wrote "Lives of the Artists."
(WUD, 1994, p.1582)(MC, 7/30/02)
1588 Jul 30, The English soundly
defeated the Spanish Armada in the Battle of Gravelines.
(ON, 3/02, p.3)
1619 Jul 30, The first
representative assembly in America the House of Burgesses, became the
first legislative assembly in America when it convened at Jamestown, Va.
(AP, 7/30/97)(HN, 7/30/98)
1626 Jul 30, An earthquake hit
Naples and some 10,000 died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1646 Jul 30, English parliament
set the Newcastle Propositions of King Charles I.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1712 Jul 30, Abraham Elsevier,
publisher, died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1715 Jul 30, A Spanish gold and
silver fleet disappeared off St. Lucie, Florida.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1718 Jul 30, William Penn, English
Quaker, colonizer (No cross, no crown), died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1729 Jul 30, The city of Baltimore
was founded.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1733 Jul 30, Society of Freemasons
opened their 1st American lodge in Boston.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1747 Jul 30, Antonio Benedetto
Maria Puccini, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1751 Jul 30, Maria A. [Nannerl]
Mozart, Austrian pianist, Wolfgang's sister, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1771 Jul 30, Thomas Gray (54),
English poet ("Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"), died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1775 Jul 30, Captain Cook returned
to England.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1784 Jul 30, Denis Diderot
(b.1713), French philosopher, critic, and encyclopedist, died. "Men
will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails
of the last priest."
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A16)(
www.giga-usa.com/quotes/authors/denis_diderot_a001.htm)
1787 Jul 30, The French parliament
refused to approve a more equitable land tax.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1792 Jul 30, The French national
anthem "La Marseillaise" by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was first
sung in Paris.
(AP, 7/30/99)
1799 Jul 30, The French garrison
at Mantua, Italy surrendered to the Austrians.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1818 Jul 30, Emily Bronte, author
of Wuthering Heights, was born.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1824 Jul 30, Gioacchino Rossini
became manager of Theatre Italian in Paris.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1831 Jul 30, Helene P. Blavatsky,
founder (Theosophist Cooperation), was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1839 Jul 30, Slave rebels took
over the slave ship Amistad.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1844 Jul 30, The New York Yacht
Club was founded.
(AP, 7/30/99)
1855 Jul 30, Wilhelm von Siemens,
German industrialist, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1857 Jul 30, Thorstein Veblen
(d.1929), political economist and sociologist, was born in Wisconsin to
Norwegian immigrants. He authored “The Theory of the Leisure Class” in
1899.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.4)(HN,
7/30/01)(MC, 7/30/02)
1863 Jul 30, Henry Ford (d.1947),
founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the Model T, was
born in Dearborn Township, Mich. He led American war production with
the gigantic facility at Willow Run. "You can’t build a reputation on
what you are going to do."
(AP, 8/16/97)(AP, 7/30/98)(HN, 7/30/98)
1863 Jul 30, Pres. Lincoln issued
his "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black
prisoner shot.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1863 Jul 30, George Crockett
Strong (29), US Union Gen-Maj, died of injuries.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1864 Jul 30, Gen Burnside failed
on an attack of Petersburg and in an effort to penetrate the
Confederate lines around Petersburg, Va., Union troops exploded some
8,000 pounds of gunpowder underneath the Confederate trenches. The
blast killed 100s of Confederates. Union forces could not capitalize on
the assault and ended up trapped in the bloody crater. The ensuing
action is known as the Battle of the Crater. 4,000 Union soldiers were
killed, wounded or captured in the Battle of the Crater during the
Siege of Petersburg. [see Jul 29]
(HN, 7/30/98)(HNQ, 8/23/00)(MC, 7/30/02)
1864 Jul 30, Confederate troops
attack Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The town was burned by Union forces
under McCausland.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1865 Jul 30, The worst US
steamship disaster occurred. The Brother Jonathon, a paddle wheel
steamer, sank off the coast of Northern California near Crescent City.
221 [166] people died after the ship hit a rock near Crescent City.
There were 19 survivors. The 220-foot, side-wheeled steamer was on
route to Puget Sound and reportedly carried as much as $2 million in
gold. In the 1990s Deep Sea Research found and salvaged 1,207 gold
coins from the ship. California received 20% of the treasure and the
rest was put up for auction in 1999.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A18)(SFC, 6/10/97,
p.A4)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/28/99, p.D7)(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A27)
1878 Jul 30, German anti-Semitism
began during the Reichstag election.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1880 Jul 30, Robert Rutherford
("Colonel") McCormick, US, editor, publisher (Chicago Tribune), was
born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
c1889 Jul 30, Casey Stengel, New
York Yankees manager who led his team to 10 World Series, was born.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1889 Jul 30, Vladimir Zworykin,
called the "Father of Television" for inventing the iconoscope, was
born in Russia.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1898 Jul 30, Henry Moore (d.1986),
English sculptor, was born. In 1998 John Hedgecoe published “A
Monumental Vision: The Sculpture of Henry Moore.”
(SFEC, 7/19/98, BR p.9)(HN, 7/30/01)
1898 Jul 30, Otto von Bismarck
(b.1815), German statesman and former "Iron" chancellor (1871-1890),
died. He held the German social security system as his greatest
accomplishment. In 1986 Lothar Gall authored “Bismarck.”
(WUD, 1994, p.151)(WUD, 1994, p.A27)(WSJ, 6/23/07,
p.P10)
1899 Jul 30, Gerald Moore,
England, pianist (Am I Too Loud), was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1902 Jul 30, Anti-Jewish rioters
attacked the funeral procession of Rabbi Joseph in NYC.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1908 Jul 30, An around the world
automobile race ended in Paris. The American Thomas Speedway Flyer, was
declared the winner over teams from Germany and Italy. In 1966 driver
George Schuster authored “The Longest Auto Race.” The restored Flyer
was later displayed at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
(ON, 4/08, p.10)(AP, 7/30/08)
1909 Jul 30, C. Northcote
Parkinson (d.1993), historian and author, was born. Author of
Parkinson's Law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its
completion."
(HN, 7/30/01)(AP, 3/10/02)
1916 Jul 30, German saboteurs blew
up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were
killed. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. After much legal
maneuvering a commission in 1939 ruled that Germany was guilty of
sabotaging Black Tom and another plant in Kingsland, NJ, and awarded$50
million to the claimants. In 1953 the new Federal Republic of Germany
began making payments. The last payment was made in 1979.
(AH, 10/04, p.36,77)
1912 Jul 30, Emperor Meiji died.
Under Meiji the country had moved from a preindustrial state to a
leading modern power. His son Yoshihito followed his father to the
throne. With him the Meiji era ended officially and the Taisho era
began.
(WSJ, 8/30/00,
p.A24)(www.artelino.com/articles/emperor_meiji.asp)
1918 Jul 30, Poet Joyce Kilmer
(b.1886), a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, was killed
during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. Kilmer is perhaps
best remembered for his poem "Trees."
(AP,
7/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Kilmer)
1919 Jul 30, Federal troops were
called out to put down Chicago race riots.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1924 Jul 30, William H. Gass,
writer (Omensetter's Luck), was born.
(HN, 7/30/01)
1928 Jul 30, George Eastman showed
the 1st color motion pictures in the US. [see Jun 4, 1929]
(MC, 7/30/02)
1932 Jul 30, The Summer Olympic
Games opened in Los Angeles. The US won 41 gold medals, Italy was 2nd
with less than a third of that. Bill Miller of Stanford won a gold
medal in the pole vault when he cleared 14'-1 ¾". Later in the
year he set a world record at 14'-1 7/8". Babe Didriksen (21) of Texas
won 2 track gold medals and a silver.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.4)(AP, 7/30/97)(NG, 8/04,
Geographica)
1935 Jul 30, The 1st Penguin book
was published in England and started the paperback revolution. The
sixpenny books made a 1st blow to the library system.
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.E1)(MC, 7/30/02)(Econ, 5/1/04,
p.59)
1940 Jul 30, Patricia Shroeder,
Democratic congresswoman from Colorado, was born.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1940 Jul 30, A bombing lull ended
the first phase of the Battle of Britain.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1941 Jul 30, Paul Anka, singer and
song-writer, was born in Ottawa. He later composed the song “My Way.”
(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)
1942 Jul 30, President Roosevelt
signed a bill creating a women's auxiliary agency in the Navy known as
"Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" or WAVES for short.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1942 Jul 30, The US
passenger-freighter Robert E. Lee with 268 passengers was sunk by the
German U-166 submarine. 15 crew members and 10 passengers died. In 2001
wreckage of the U-166 was found in the Gulf of Mexico and it appeared
that it was sunk by Coast Guard PC-566 right after the attack. U-166
had 52 crew members. [see Aug 1, 1942]
(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)
1942 Jul 30, German SS
einsatzgruppen death battalions killed 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1944 Jul 30, US 30th division
reached the suburbs of St. Lo, Normandy.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1945 Jul 30, The USS Indianapolis,
which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to
the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.
Only 317 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested
waters. [see Jul 29] In 2001 Doug Stanton authored "In Harm’s Way," an
account of the sinking and trial of Capt. McVey. In 2001 the Navy
exonerated the Indianapolis’ captain, Charles Butler McVay the Third,
who was court-martialed and convicted for failing to evade the
submarine that sank his ship.
(AP, 7/30/97)(SFEC, 8/20/00, Par p.4)(WSJ, 4/6/01,
p.W9)(AP, 7/29/01)
1946 Jul 30, Jeffrey
Hammond-Hammond, rock bassist (Jethro Tull), was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1947 Jul 30, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, 5x Mr. Universe and film star, was born in Thal bei
Graz, Austria. In 2003 he was elected governor of California.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, Par p.4)(Internet)
1949 Jul 30, British warship HMS
Amethyst escaped down Yangtze River after having been refused a safe
passage by Chinese Communists after 3-month standoff.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1956 Jul 30, Anita Hill, professor
of law, Clarence Thomas' nemesis, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1956 Jul 30, US motto "In God We
Trust" was authorized.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1960 Jul 30, Over 60,000 Buddhists
marched in protest against the Diem government in South Vietnam.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1963 Jul 30, British spy Kim
Philby was discovered in Moscow. Philby, writer for The Economist, who
spent six years filing dispatches from the Middle East, was discovered
to be a spy and defected to the Soviet Union.
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)(MC, 7/30/02)
1964 Jul 30, US Naval fired on Hon
Ngu and Hon Mo in North Vietnam.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1965 Jul 30, President Johnson
signed into law the Medicare bill, which went into effect the following
year. John W. Gardner (d.2002), a member of Johnson’s cabinet, was
responsible for starting Medicare. A statute required coverage of items
that were reasonable and necessary.
(AP, 7/30/97)(SFC, 2/18/02, p.A6)(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.A1)
1966 Jul 30, US airplanes bombed
the demilitarized zone in Vietnam.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1967 Jul 30, General William
Westmoreland claimed that he was winning the war in Vietnam but needed
more men.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1967 Jul 30, There was a race riot
in Milwaukee and 4 people were killed.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1967 Jul 30, Alfred Krupp (59),
German industrialist, died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1968 Jul 30, In Gary, Indiana,
policemen took aim at snipers after the third night of racial unrest.
64 people were taken into custody. Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, the first
Negro mayor in a city with a Negro majority, said that he now believes
that gangs realize they will not be allowed to use violence to get what
they want.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 30, Saddam Hussein took
charge of internal security services in Iraq.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1970 Jul 30, George Szell
(b.1897)), Hungarian-US conductor, died in Cleveland, Ohio. He had
served as the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1946.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Szell)
1971 Jul 30, US Apollo 15 with
astronauts Scott and Irwin landed at Mare Imbrium on the Moon.
(http://history.nasa.gov/SP-362/app.b.htm)
1971 Jul 30, In SF Officer Arthur
O’Guinn was fatally shot while making a traffic stop. 2 people were
caught and convicted of 2nd-degree murder. They were paroled in the
late 1970s.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)
1971 Jul 30, A Japanese 727
collided with a jet fighter. 162 people were killed.
(WUD, 1994, p.
1688)(www.airdisaster.com/features/top100/top100.shtml)
1974 Jul 30, The House Judiciary
Committee voted down an article of impeachment against President
Richard Nixon relating to demeaning his office by misconduct of
personal financial affairs. In April, 1974, a congressional inquiry
into possible tax fraud revealed that Nixon owed $476,531 in back taxes
for the period 1969-72. He agreed to pay and no conclusion was drawn by
the congress regarding fraud. The Judiciary Committee vote against the
article of impeachment was 26-12. Article 3 of the impeachment was
passed. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Peter Rodino presided over
the impeachment hearings.
(http://tinyurl.com/5doffx)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/nixon.htm)(SFC,
12/15/98, p.A3)
1974 Jul 30, The prime ministers
of Greece and Turkey and the British Foreign Secretary signed a peace
agreement to settle the Cyprus crisis.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/july/30/newsid_2492000/2492515.stm)
1975 Jul 30, Former Teamsters
union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the
Machus Red fox Restaurant in suburban Detroit. Although presumed dead,
his remains have never been found. He was scheduled to meet with Mafia
captain Tony Jack Giacalone (d.2001 at 82) and New Jersey Teamster boss
Anthony Provenzano. In 2004 Charles Brandt authored “I Heard You Paint
Houses,” in which he says Teamster official Frank Sheeran (d.2003)
claimed to have shot Hoffa. Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982.
(HFA, '96, p.34)(AP, 7/30/97)(SFC, 2/26/01,
p.A24)(SFC, 5/29/04, p.A2)
1975 Jul 30, James Benjamin Blish
(b.1921), sci-fi author (Star Trek Reader, Black Sunday), died. Blish
also wrote criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William
Atheling Jr.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blish)
1975 Jul 30, Representatives of 35
countries convened in Finland for a conference on security and human
rights that resulted in the Helsinki accords.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1978 Jul 30, To celebrate the 80th
birthday of sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986), an exhibition of his work
was held in London’s Hyde Park.
(TL, 1988,
p.119)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore)
1978 Jul 30, Tropical Storm Amelia
formed in the western Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, Texas. The storm
moved over land, but continued to intensify to a 50 mph tropical storm.
The storm dissipated over Texas on August 1. Flooding rains due to
torrential rains exceeding 40 inches led to the deaths of 30 people in
Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Atlantic_hurricane_season#Tropical_Storm_Amelia)
1980 Jul 30, The Israeli Knesset
passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish
state.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1980 Jul 30, The Pacific island of
Vanuatu gained independence from Britain.
(SFC, 7/1/97,
p.A9)(www.worldstatesmen.org/Vanuatu.html)
1981 Jul 30, Senegalese troops
aborted an attempt to overthrow the government of Gambia by a
paramilitary field force. Pres. Jawara was restored to power.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9n%C3%A9gambia_Confederation)
1983 Jul 30, Lynn Fontanne
(b.1887), British-born stage and screen actress (Emmy 1965), died in
Wisconsin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Fontanne)
1984 Jul 30, Holly Roffey (11 days
old) received a heart transplant in England. She died on Aug 17.
(www.camelotintl.com/365_days/july.html)
1984 Jul 30, The British tanker
Alvenus spilled 2.8 million gallons of oil at Cameron, La.
(http://ceprofs.tamu.edu/rhann/links/case.asp)
1985 Jul 30, Germaine Krull
(b.1897), Polish born German photographer, died.
(SFEM, 4/9/00,
p.4)(www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/kr.htm)
1987 Jul 30, Former White House
Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan told the Iran-Contra congressional
committees he had repeatedly urged President Reagan to break off arms
sales to Iran.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1987 Jul 30, Microsoft acquired
Forethought, the developer of PowerPoint, for $14 million. Microsoft
created its own version 3 years later. Robert Gaskins had engaged
Dennis Austin to do the initial programming for PowerPoint 1.0 for Macs.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.B1)
1987 Jul 30, Some 50,000 Indian
troops arrived in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, to disarm the Tamil Tigers and
enforce a peace pact. After a time they began fighting the Tigers and
in 1990 the government asked them to leave.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A21)(Econ,
8/5/06, p.40)
1988 Jul 30, Jordan's King Hussein
dissolved his country's lower house of Parliament, half of whose 60
members were from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hussein renounced
sovereignty over the West Bank to the PLO.
(AP, 7/30/98)(http://tinyurl.com/ov6pf)
1989 Jul 30, In Lebanon, the
pro-Iranian group Organization for the Oppressed on Earth threatened to
kill an American hostage, Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, unless
Israel released Sheik Abdul-Karim Obeid, a cleric seized by Israeli
commandos.
(AP, 7/30/99)
1990 Jul 30, George Steinbrenner
was forced by Commissioner Fay Vincent to resign as principal partner
of NY Yankees.
(http://tinyurl.com/bjbgt)
1990 Jul 30, GM’s first Saturn car
rolled off the line at Spring Hill, Tennessee. In the fall, GM
introduced its all-new Saturn cars to compete against the imports in
the small car market. Roger Smith, GM’s CEO, announced the secret
Saturn project in 1985 in order to "leap-frog" the Japanese car makers.
(www.gm.com/company/corp_info/history/gmhis1990.html)
1990 Jul 30, British Conservative
Party lawmaker Ian Gow was killed in a bombing claimed by the Irish
Republican Army.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1990 Jul 30, In Monrovia, Liberia,
soldiers opened fire on worshippers in church over 600 Gios and Manos
were killed.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/liberia/army.htm)
1991 Jul 30, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev began their face-to-face meetings
in Moscow.
(AP, 7/30/01)
1992 Jul 30, At the Barcelona
Summer Olympics, Shannon Miller won the silver medal in the women's
all-around gymnastics event.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1992 Jul 30, A TWA Lockheed L-1011
caught fire during takeoff from New York City's Kennedy International
Airport; all 292 people aboard survived.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1993 Jul 30, Bosnia's outgunned
Muslim-led government abandoned its efforts to hold the region
together, agreeing to a preliminary accord to divide the former
Yugoslav republic into three ethnic states.
(AP, 7/30/98)
1994 Jul 30, The first U.S. troops
landed in the Rwandan capital of Kigali to secure the airport for an
expanded international aid effort.
(AP, 7/30/99)
1995 Jul 30, Russia and Chechen
rebels signed an agreement calling for a gradual withdrawal of Russian
troops and the disarmament of rebel fighters.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1996 Jul 30, The U.S. Olympic
softball team defeated China, 3-1, to win the gold medal.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1996 Jul 30, A federal law
enforcement source said security guard Richard Jewell had become a
focus of the investigation into the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park.
Jewell was later cleared as a suspect, and Eric Rudolph eventually
pleaded guilty.
(AP, 7/30/06)
1996 Jul 30, Claudette Colbert,
actress in many classic films, died in Barbados at 92.
(AP, 7/30/97)(WSJ, 7/31/96, p.A1)
1997 Jul 30, The US lifted a
12-year ban on US citizens visits to Lebanon.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 30, Eighteen people,
including two Americans, were killed in a landslide that swept one ski
lodge onto another at the Thredbo Alpine Village in southeast
Australia.
(AP, 7/30/98)
1997 Jul 30, In Algeria it was
reported that Muslim militants massacred over 80 villagers in recent
attacks in apparent retaliation to a government offensive. 40 villagers
were killed at Metmata village in Ain Defla province.
(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1997 Jul 30, Two men bombed
Jerusalem's most crowded outdoor market, killing themselves and 16
others. Following the suicide bombing in Israel that killed 15 people,
79 Palestinians were arrested.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A8)(AP, 7/30/98)
1997 Jul 30, In Sierra Leone Major
Johnny Komora announced that elections for civilian rule would be held
in Nov of 2001.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A16)
1998 Jul 30, The US Post Office
began selling a 40-cent breast cancer stamp. Eight cents from every
stamp will go to breast cancer research sponsored by the NIH and the
Dept. of Defense.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A1,14)(SFC, 7/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 30, In California a
scientific panel advised the state that diesel exhaust posed a serious
cancer threat.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.A23)
1998 Jul 30, A group of 13 Ohio
machinists stepped forward to claim the $295.7 million Powerball
jackpot. The workers opted to take the cash option: one payment of
about $161.5 million.
(AP, 7/30/99)
1998 Jul 30, “Buffalo Bob” Smith,
the cowboy-suited host of the Howdy Doody Show from 1947-1960, died at
age 80 in Hendersonville [Flat Rock], N.C.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.D7)(AP, 7/30/99)
1998 Jul 30, In France a Proteus
Airlines Beechcraft collided with a Cessna off the west coast and 15
people were killed.
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 30, Japan's Parliament
declared Keizo Obuchi the country's next prime minister.
(AP, 7/30/99)(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 30, In Serajevo Pres.
Clinton pledged $700 million in aid in addition to $500 million for
Kosovo as talks began to rebuild the Balkans.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A6)
1999 Jul 30, The US agreed to pay
$4.5 million to the injured and families of the victims of the May 7
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A6)
1999 Jul 30, Republicans pushed
their $792 billion-dollar tax cut through the Senate.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1999 Jul 30, Linda Tripp, whose
secretly recorded 1997 phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky led to
the impeachment of President Clinton, was charged in Maryland with
illegal wiretapping. Prosecutors later dropped the charges.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A1)(AP, 7/30/00)
1999 Jul 30, United Airlines
agreed to offer domestic-partner benefits to employees and retirees
worldwide following a 2-year legal struggle against the SF
domestic-partners law.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 30, The leaders of some
40 nations gathered in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, pledging to push
economic and democratic reforms for the war-torn Balkans.
(AP, 7/30/00)
1999 Jul 30, In Colombia a
powerful car bomb exploded in Medellin outside an anti-kidnapping unit
that had arrested 7 suspected members of FARC just hours earlier. At
least 10 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A8)
1999 Jul 30, A Venezuelan airliner
with 16 people went missing. Rebels on Aug 8 promised to free 14
passengers and crewmen. Colombian rebels freed 8 passengers Aug 9 and
allowed the pilot and co-pilot to fly the plane back to Venezuela.
(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/9/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/10/99,
p.A1)
2000 Jul 30, In Tamil Nadu, India,
film star Rajkumar and 3 companions were kidnapped by Veerappan and his
gang. Veerappan was accused of killing at least 130 police officers and
had eluded capture for 18 years. On Aug 6 the governments of Tamil Nadu
and Karnataka agreed to met rebel the kidnapper’s demands.
(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A11)(SFC, 8/7/00, p.A14)
2000 Jul 30, In Kashmir a
Pakistan-based rebel group opposed to a cease-fire attacked Indian
security forces and killed at least 3 soldiers.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A10)
2000 Jul 30, In Kazakstan the last
nuclear test facility was destroyed with a controlled detonation of 100
tons of explosives.
(SFC, 7/31/00, p.A14)
2000 Jul 30, North and South Korea
agreed to hold regular high-level talks and to re-open their suspended
border liaisons to implement earlier agreements.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.A2)
2000 Jul 30, In Venezuela national
elections were scheduled. 56% of the populace turned out and endorsed
Pres. Chavez to a 6-year term by a 59 to 37% margin over Francisco
Arias. Chavez’s Fifth Republic Movement won 9 of 23 state governor
races and a simple majority of the legislature. The new constitution
gave voters the right to revoke the president’s mandate after 3 years
by referendum.
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 7/31/00, p.A12)(SFC,
8/1/00, p.A10)
2001 Jul 30, Former Pres. Clinton
opened his new office in Harlem.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 30, Intel rolled out its
new Pentium III-M processor based on .13 micron chip technology.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.E3)
2001 Jul 30, In Alaska a
sightseeing plane crashed near Glacier Bay National Park and all 6
people aboard were killed.
(WSJ, 8/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 30, In Argentina the
Senate passed a tough austerity package supported by Pres. de la Rua.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A7)
2001 Jul 30, It was reported that
Bolivia’s Pres. Banzer would step down Aug 6 due to his cancer
diagnosis.
(WSJ, 7/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 30, In Canada medicinal
use of marijuana became legal. The government grew the drug in an
abandoned salt mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and sold it to authorized
users at C$5 ($4.40) a gram.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A6)(Reuters, 11/13/06)
2001 Jul 30, In the West Bank 6
Palestinian Fatah activists were killed in an explosion near the
Al-Fara refugee camp. Israeli helicopters soon after rocketed a weapons
storage center in Gaza and at least 7 Palestinian police officers were
wounded.
(SFC, 7/30/01, p.A6)(WSJ, 7/30/01, p.A1)(SFC,
7/31/01, p.A6)
2001 Jul 30, In Macedonia peace
talks dragged into a 3rd day as rebels controlled part of Tetovo.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A7)
2001 Jul 30, In South Africa
Catholic bishops denounced condoms as “immoral and misguided” weapons
against AIDS.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A6)
2001 Jul 30, In Taiwan Typhoon
Toraji left some 200 people dead.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A7)(AP, 7/30/06)
2001 Jul 30, Zimbabwean president
Robert Mugabe's ruling party won a special parliamentary election.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2002 Jul 30, WNBA player Lisa
Leslie became the first woman to dunk in a professional game on a
breakaway in the first half of the Los Angeles Sparks' 82-73 loss to
the Miami Sol.
(AP, 7/30/03)
2002 Jul 30, President Bush signed
into law the most far-reaching government crackdown on business fraud
since the Depression. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, named after sponsors Paul
Sarbanes and Mike Oxley, was signed into law in response to corporate
scandals. Its rules included the independence of corporate directors
requirements for better internal monitoring. The law curbed stock
option backdating by requiring prompt reporting of stock option grants.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCOAB) was established
as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In 2006 the Free Enterprise Fund
filed a suit claiming that the PCOAB is unconstitutional.
(AP, 7/30/03)(WSJ, 7/22/03, p.B1)(Econ, 2/18/06,
p.70)(WSJ, 12/27/06, p.A6)
2002 Jul 30, Expelled from
Congress a week earlier, an unrepentant Ohio Democrat James A.
Traficant Jr. was sentenced to eight years behind bars for corruption
and made it clear he intended to run for re-election from his prison
cell — and expected to win. He didn't. Traficant was released from
prison in Rochester, Minnesota, on Sep 2, 2009.
(AP, 7/30/03)(SFC, 9/3/09, p.A6)
2002 Jul 30, At Cape Cod, Mass. 46
pilot whales beached themselves a 2nd time one day after rescuers
managed to return most of a pod back to sea. All the animals died.
(SFC, 7/31/02, p.A3)
2002 Jul 30, In Brazil the real
fell 3.3% to 3.3 to the dollar, its 7th consecutive record low.
(WSJ, 7/31/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 30, The leaders of Congo
and Rwanda signed a peace agreement, proclaiming it a key step in
efforts to end a war that has embroiled six African nations and left
2.5 million people dead.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2002 Jul 30, In Egypt a military
court convicted 16 members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group,
mostly academics and professionals, on charges of conspiring against
the government and sentenced them to up to five years in prison.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2002 Jul 30, In Guatemala City
Pope John Paul II canonized his 463rd saint, Pedro de San Jose
Betancur, a 17th century Spanish missionary and Central America's first
saint.
(SFC, 7/31/02, p.A2)(AP, 7/30/07)
2002 Jul 30, Rome decided to have
the coins collected from the Trevi fountain every day and not just on
Mondays. The next day Roberto Cercelletta (50), a self-described
unemployed Roman resident, self-inflicted razor cuts on his stomach in
a protest and asked if the money collected has really gone to the
Catholic charity Caritas in past years.
(AP, 7/31/02)
2002 Jul 30, Pope John Paul II
began a three-day visit to Mexico to canonize Juan Diego, the first
Indian saint. He arrived from Guatemala to a greeting by President
Vicente Fox and tens of thousands of people lining Mexico City's
streets.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2002 Jul 30, In the Philippines
some 2,000 leftist protestors slammed a U.S.-led anti-terror exercise,
ahead of a visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell for talks on
combating terrorism.
(Reuters, 7/30/02)
2002 Jul 30, A Palestinian suicide
bomber blew himself up at a central Jerusalem fast-food stand popular
with police, wounding four Israelis. In the West Bank, gunmen killed
two Israeli settlers who had entered a Palestinian village.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2003 Jul 30, President Bush took
personal responsibility for the first time for using disputed
intelligence in his State of the Union address, but predicted he would
be vindicated for going to war against Iraq.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2003 Jul 30, Textile manufacturer
Pillowtex filed for bankruptcy saying it will close 16 plants and sell
its assets. 4,300 people in the Kannopolis, NC, area lost their jobs.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R10)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.30)
2003 Jul 30, Sam Phillips
(b.1923), founder of Sun Records (1952), died in Memphis. Phillips
produced Elvis Presley's 1st record.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A19)
2003 Jul 30, In Cambodia
opposition parties said they would only form a coalition government if
PM Hun Sen stepped down.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Jul 30, Guatemala's highest
court cleared the way for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt to run for
president.
(AP, 7/30/03)
2003 Jul 30, In India Lal Bihari,
president of the Association of the Living Dead, estimated 35,000
people in Uttar Pradesh state have been wrongly certified as dead. "We
have knocked on doors of government officials and police. No one is
ready to recognize us as living persons because revenue records declare
us dead."
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Jul 30, Iraq's U.S.-picked
interim government named its first president: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a
Shiite Muslim from the Daawa party banned by Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 7/30/04)(WSJ, 4/28/05, p.A1)
2003 Jul 30, The last Volkswagen
Beetle was produced in Puebla, Mexico. The first Beetles had arrived in
1956. Mexico had begun producing its own version of the Beetle in 1964.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A1)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.A10)
2004 Jul 30, Mike Tyson was
knocked out in the fourth round of a fight in Louisville, Ky., by
British heavyweight Danny Williams.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2004 Jul 30, Leaders of the Sept.
11 commission urged US senators to embrace their proposals for massive
changes to the nation's intelligence structure.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2004 Jul 30, Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry plunged into the general election and
embarked on a coast-to-coast campaign swing through 21 states.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, Abdurahman Alamoudi
pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to moving cash from Libya and
involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Prince Abdullah.
(SFC, 7/31/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 30, In NYC Joseph
Massino, a Bonanno crime boss, was convicted of orchestrating murder,
racketeering, arson and extortion over the last 25 years.
(SFC, 7/31/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 30, Scientists reported
the creation of synthetic prions and showed they could replicate
without genetic material and cause brain disease in laboratory animals.
(SFC, 7/30/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 30, A new Austrian
postage stamp featuring a likeness of California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger went on sale on his birthday.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, In Belgium a major
natural gas pipeline exploded in Ath, killing 16 people and injuring
120, including firefighters and police responding to a report of a leak.
(AP, 7/30/04)(WSJ, 8/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 30, In Colombia Maria
Elena Rios (25) was shot to death in the head and back in a hillside
slum of Medellin. An internal army investigation absolved Capt. Jhon
Jairo Cano and four soldiers of any wrongdoing. The investigation was
reopened in 2007 along with 130 other investigations of killings of
civilians presented as deaths of leftist rebels in action, as the US
Congress refuses to ratify a bilateral trade pact over concerns about
human rights in Colombia.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2004 Jul 30, In Iraq fierce
overnight fighting between U.S. Marines backed by fighter aircraft and
insurgents using small arms and mortars killed 13 Iraqis in Fallujah
overnight.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, Parties to Ivory
Coast's moribund peace process committed themselves again to knitting
their civil-war divided country back together, setting new target dates
for implementation of their peace deal at a summit in Ghana.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2004 Jul 30, A small bomb exploded
in Faisalabad, an industrial city of eastern Pakistan, wounding 18
people, mostly children.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, In Pakistan an attack
on Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister designate, was a response to Pres.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf's transferring wanted militants to U.S. custody.
7 people were killed plus the suicide bomber. In 2005 police arrested 3
brothers for harboring suicide bombers, who made the attack on Aziz
that left 9 bystanders dead.
(AP, 7/31/04)(AP, 1/18/05)
2004 Jul 30, Turkish authorities
seized 200 pounds of plastic explosives hidden in a truck as it crossed
into Turkey from Iraq.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, In Uzbekistan suicide
bombers hit the U.S. and Israeli embassies, killing at least two Uzbeks.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2004 Jul 30, A Venezuelan judge
ordered the arrests of 59 former military officers on suspicion of
plotting against President Hugo Chavez's government.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2005 Jul 30, President Bush was
pronounced "fit for duty" after a checkup that showed that the
59-year-old commander in chief, an avid mountain bike rider, had lost
eight pounds since his last physical exam in December 2004.
(AP, 7/30/06)
2005 Jul 30, Rep. William
Jefferson, D-La., received $100,000 at the Ritz-Carlton in Arlington,
Virginia, to use for bribing Abubakar Atiku, vice-president of Nigeria.
Vernon Jackson, a Kentucky businessman, later admitted to paying over
$400,000 in bribes to secure deals for his telecommunications company
in Nigeria and other African countries. Documents released in 2005 said
an FBI informant recorded a video of the transaction.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A3)
2005 Jul 30, In central
Afghanistan thousands of rockets, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition
have been seized in the largest cache of militant weapons discovered in
months.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, In England Anthony
Walker (18), a black teenager who was followed late July 29 through a
Liverpool park by a group of men shouting racist taunts, died after an
attacker embedded an ax in his skull.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, The death toll in
China from a mysterious pig-borne disease continued to rise, with
several more cities affected. Sichuan province in southwestern China
has launched a campaign to educate poor, illiterate farmers not to
slaughter sick pigs or eat their meat after an outbreak of swine flu
hit about 100 villages and killed at least 34 people.
(Reuters, AFP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, In southern China a
brick wall collapsed at a festival, killing seven people and injuring
22. The wall fell during the opening ceremony of an annual "torch
festival" celebrated by the Yi ethnic minority in Yunnan province's
Yuanyang county.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, Leaders of a
Colombian right-wing paramilitary faction, believed to be one of the
most heavily involved in drug trafficking, demobilized their troops and
said they wanted to form a political party. Nearly 700 fighters in the
"Southern Liberators" unit of the paramilitary United Self-Defense
Forces turned in their weapons at a ceremony in Tamiango.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, The CzechTek rave,
attended by some 5000 fans, was broken up by some 1000 riot police.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.44)(http://czechtek.muzika.cz/)
2005 Jul 30, In Egypt police and
government supporters beat pro-reform activists with batons, sometimes
kicking them as they on lay the ground, during a protest against
President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he would run for
re-election for a fifth time.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, Wim Duisenberg
(b.1935), Dutch-born first chief of the European Central Bank who
helped create the euro currency, was found dead at a home in Faucon,
France.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, In India the
discovery of more bodies pushed the death toll from this week's monsoon
floods in Bombay to more than 850. Officials warned it will likely rise
to around 1,000.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, In southern Iraq 2
British contractors guarding a consulate convoy were killed by a
roadside bomb. A car bomb exploded near the National Theater in
Baghdad, killing 5 people, including 3 policemen. Assailants in
military garb tried to assassinate a prominent Sunni Arab leader. 5 US
soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in two separate incidents in
Baghdad.
(AP, 7/30/05)(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, In Kashmir militants
holed up in buildings on a busy street in Srinagar fired at security
forces during a raid.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, Maoist guerrillas in
eastern Nepal kidnapped seven civil servants.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, A Russian oil tanker
slammed into a St. Petersburg bridge, leaking diesel oil into the Neva
River.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, A Russia newspaper
reported that a strain of bird flu harmful to humans has been found in
an outbreak of the disease in Siberia. The administration of
Novosibirsk ordered the slaughter of 65,000 domestic fowl in 14
villages.
(AP, 7/30/05)(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A9)
2006 Jul 30, Afghan and coalition
forces killed 23 Taliban militants in clashes in Helmand province's
Garmser district.
(AFP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 30, In Bahrain 16 Indian
workers died when a fire broke out in the building where they lived in
the capital Manama. The six-storey building housed some 300 workers,
mostly Indians, working for a contracting company.
(AFP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jul 30, It was reported that
China had lowered the estimated number of HIV/AIDS infected people from
840,000 to 650,000.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.A17)
2006 Jul 30, Congolese voted in
their first democratic election in more than four decades. Incumbent
President Joseph Kabila later won a runoff.
(AP, 7/30/06)(AP, 7/30/07)
2006 Jul 30, Afghan soldiers and
police killed six Taliban fighters and captured eight during a clash in
southeastern Paktika province's Waza Khwa district. A suspected Taliban
died when a land mine he was planting north of Kandahar city exploded.
(AP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jul 30, In India at least 8
people died during heavy monsoon rains at the weekend and more than
25,000 were evacuated in the western state of Gujarat.
(AFP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jul 30, In Iraq gunmen killed
at least 23 pilgrims on their way to Najaf. A car bomb in Kirkuk killed
6 people and wounded 17.
(SFC, 7/31/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 30, Israeli missiles hit
several buildings in Qana, a southern Lebanon village, as people slept,
killing 29, mostly children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days of
fighting. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert expressed "great sorrow" for the
airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the area to launch
rockets at Israel. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called an emergency
meeting of the Security Council. Israel suspended air attacks on south
Lebanon for 48 hours in the face of widespread outrage over the
airstrike.
(AP, 8/3/06)(AP, 7/30/07)
2006 Jul 30, In Indian Kashmir 6
people were killed in shootings and 10 wounded in a grenade attack on a
bus carrying Hindu pilgrims.
(AFP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 30, Residents on the tiny
island nation of Sao Tome and Principe off West Africa voted for a new
president.
(AP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jul 30, The first commercial
flight in a decade departed Mogadishu’s newly reopened international
airport, demonstrating how Islamic militants have pacified the
once-anarchic capital and much of southern Somalia.
(AP, 7/30/06)
2006 Jul 30, The Seychelles held
presidential elections. External debt was reported to be $590 million
for the population of 82,000 people.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.40)
2006 Jul 30, Sunbathers on a beach
in Spain's Canary Islands came to the aid of 88 African migrants whose
boat ran aground, giving them food, water and blankets after their
dangerous trip in search of a new life.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 30, Duygu Asena (60), a
best-selling writer and crusader for women's rights in Turkey, died
after a two-year battle with a brain tumor. In 1978 she founded the
first women's magazine in Turkey. Asena was the first Turkish writer to
explore such topics as women's rights, sexuality and wife-beating. Her
1987 book “Woman Has No Name" broke sales records when it was printed,
but was soon banned by the government which found it to be too lewd and
obscene. The ban was lifted after a two-year court battle. A film
adaptation of the book broke box office records in Turkey.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 30, In eastern Uganda a
minibus that was speeding collided with a fuel truck killing 30 people.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2007 Jul 30, US President George
W. Bush and Britain’s PM Gordon Brown held talks. Brown hoped to secure
support for a Darfur peace deal and movement on stalled world trade
talks. Bush and PM Brown, meeting at Camp David, forged a unified stand
on Iraq.
(AP, 7/30/07)(AP, 7/30/08)
2007 Jul 30, Jinzhou Chang (24), a
Contra Costa college student, was shot and killed in El Cerrito, Ca.,
while helping his immigrant father make repairs at an apartment
complex. Three 17-year-old boys were soon arrested and faced robbery
and murder charges.
(SFC, 8/9/07, p.B5)
2007 Jul 30, Bill Walsh (b.1931),
former head coach of the SF 49ers football team, died at his Woodside
home following a long battle with leukemia.
(AP, 7/31/07)
2007 Jul 30, A 2nd South Korean
hostage was slain by the Taliban in central Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2007 Jul 30, Bangladesh's High
Court suspended former PM Sheikh Hasina's extortion trial and ordered
her released on bail.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, A raging forest fire
has destroyed thousands of acres of woodland on Spain's Gran Canaria
island and forced the evacuation of more than 2,000 people.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, China tightened
credit in a new effort to cool its sizzling economy, ordering banks to
shrink the pool of money for lending by increasing their reserves for a
sixth time this year.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, China’s state media
said floods, landslides and mud flows triggered by torrential rains
have killed 652 people in China so far this year, with more heavy rains
in the forecast.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, A UN investigator
said extreme sexual violence against women is pervasive in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and local authorities do little to
stop it or prosecute those responsible.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Egyptian police
clashed with Bedouins protesting a government order to demolish their
houses along the Palestinian Gaza Strip's border, leaving dozens
injured. Egyptian media have reported a government plan to force the
Bedouins from a 500-foot-wide band of land along the border to prevent
traffickers from digging tunnels used to smuggle weapons and people
into Gaza.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, The European
Commission said it was seeking a court injunction against Polish plans
to build a key continental highway to prevent permanent damage to the
Rospuda Valley, a "unique environmental site."
(AFP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, It was reported that
India’s Maharashtra state government has banned domesticated elephants
from Mumbai, India's largest city, saying that forcing the animals to
walk the city's chaotic, crowded and polluted streets was an act of
cruelty. The ban took effect last week.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, UN inspectors visited
a nuclear reactor being built in central Iran, a facility that has been
off-limits since April. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman criticized a
US plan to sell state-of-the-art weapons to Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Ayatollah Ali
Meshkini (85), a founding member of Iran's Islamic regime and leader of
an important government assembly, died.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, A minibus exploded in
a Baghdad market, killing at least six people. Relief agencies said
about 8 million Iraqis, nearly a third of the population, need
immediate emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by
the Iraq war. A US Marine was killed in combat operations in Anbar
province.
(AP, 7/30/07)(AP, 7/31/07)
2007 Jul 30, An Israeli
parliamentary committee voted unanimously to revoke the privileges of
disgraced former president Moshe Katsav, who signed a plea bargain in
June admitting he sexually harassed several female employees. An
Israeli aircraft attacked a car carrying Palestinian militants,
wounding two members of Islamic Jihad and the Gaza commander of the Al
Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Michelangelo
Antonioni (b.1912), film director, died (94). He was one of Italy's
most influential post-war film directors whose portrayals of modern
angst and alienation won him a cult following. His films included the
Oscar-nominated "Blowup," "Zabriskie Point" and the internationally
acclaimed "L'Avventura" (The Adventure).
(Reuters, 7/31/07)
2007 Jul 30, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe
rejected calls for his resignation, saying the country couldn't afford
the resulting "power vacuum."
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, In northern Lebanon
the army unleashed tank and artillery fire on the remaining hideouts of
al-Qaida-inspired militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, The body of Luis
Lazaro Lara Morejon, a Cuban-American who was under investigation in a
migrant smuggling case, was found riddled with bullets along a road
outside Cancun, Mexico.
(AP, 7/31/07)
2007 Jul 30, In Pakistan 3
paramilitary soldiers and four civilians died in militant attacks in
the North Waziristan tribal region.
(Reuters, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, In the Philippines
southeast Asian foreign ministers agreed to set up a regional human
rights commission, overcoming fierce resistance from military-ruled
Myanmar. Myanmar agreed not to veto discussion over the human rights
commission at a November summit.
(AP, 7/30/07)(Econ, 8/4/07, p.36)
2007 Jul 30, Patriarch Teoctist
(b.1915), head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, died in Bucharest, He
made history when he invited the late John Paul II to his Orthodox
country in 1999 but was criticized for being too close to former
Communists.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, In Somalia insurgents
attacked government buildings in Mogadishu, starting a gunbattle with
troops that killed at least 4 people, including a four-year-old child.
In the central town of Belet Weyne, two children and their father were
killed when Ethiopian troops fired artillery shells into a residential
area after a land mine exploded near their convoy. A land mine exploded
near a bus in southern Mogadishu, killing 5 on board and wounding 3
others.
(AP, 7/31/07)(AP, 8/1/07)
2007 Jul 30, Officials said at
least 19 people have been killed and hundreds of homes destroyed by a
series of forest fires which have swept through parts of northeastern
South Africa.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Ingmar Bergman
(b.1918), Swedish film and stage director, died. The iconoclastic
filmmaker was widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern
cinema. His 1987 autobiography was titled "The Magic Lantern."
(AP, 7/30/07)
2008 Jul 30, President Bush signed
a massive housing bill intended to provide mortgage relief for 400,000
struggling homeowners and stabilize financial markets. Bush also signed
an executive order updating the authority of the national intelligence
director.
(AP, 7/30/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 30, President George W.
Bush signed legislation repealing a rule that prevented HIV-infected
immigrants, students and tourists from receiving US visas without
special waivers. Bush also signed an act reauthorizing PEPFAR, the
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It will provide $39 billion
to be spent on AIDS over the next 5 years, up from $15 billion for the
past 5 years.
(AP,
8/5/08)(www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/hivaids/)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.75)
2008 Jul 30, The NY Times reported
that a top Central Intelligence Agency official has traveled to
Islamabad and confronted senior officials with evidence of ties between
Pakistan's spy agency and militants operating in that country's tribal
areas.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, US federal health
officials said the salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak
has been found in irrigation water and in a sample from a batch of
serrano peppers at a Mexican farm in Nuevo Leon. Mexico's Agriculture
Department rejected the FDA's conclusion saying "The farm unit in
question ended its harvest more than a month ago, so the sample they
say they have lacks scientific validity" because the sample "was taken
recently from a tank holding rain water that was not used in
production."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, In SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom signed into law a $6.5 billion city budget.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 30, Nicholas Corozzo
(68), New York City mob captain, pleaded guilty to racketeering and 2
murders in 1996. In 2009 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/cz7tj8)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A10)
2008 Jul 30, In Afghanistan
Insurgents and a roadside blast killed five Afghan policemen.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Aborigines won
traditional ownership rights over a large stretch of coastline in
northern Australia, in a landmark ruling lawyers said could set a
precedent in other parts of the country.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Former Bosnian Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a UN jail cell after being flown to the
Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against
Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Media watchdog Ofcom
fined the BBC 400,000 pounds, the largest financial penalty it has ever
issued against the public broadcaster, for misleading the public
through fake quizzes and competitions.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Canada Tim McLean
(22), sleeping on a Greyhound bus was killed and decapitated by his
seatmate, Vince Weiguang Li (40), as the bus rolled across the Canadian
Prairies in Manitoba. On march 5, 2009, a judge ruled that Li would not
be judged criminally responsible due to mental illness.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 3/5/09)
2008 Jul 30, A human rights group
said Chinese authorities have sent Liu Shaokun to a labor camp for a
year. He had posted pictures of collapsed schools on the Internet and
was detained last June for allegedly “seriously disturbing social
order.” And disrupting post-quake reconstruction efforts.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 30, The UN Security
Council voted to end an 8-year-long peacekeeping mission between
Eritrea and Ethiopia despite continuing tensions, a move that the
United Nations' chief has warned could lead to a new war.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Germany's highest
court partially overturned bans on smoking in bars, ruling that states
must either ban smoking in all restaurants and pubs or offer exceptions
for single-room establishments.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In the troubled
Russian republic of Ingushetia a car bomb exploded outside the regional
police headquarters morning, killing at least two police.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Nearly 50,000 Iraqi
police and soldiers were involved in a US-backed operation against
al-Qaida in Iraq in one of its last major strongholds near the capital.
A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Baghdad,
killing at least one Iraqi soldier and wounding seven other people.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Israel’s PM Ehud
Olmert announced he would step down after his Kadima Party's leadership
race in September, called because of a series of corruption allegations
against him.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Lebanon gunmen
attacked a Lebanese military post in the country's east, killing one
soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Mexican police
captured Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian cartel operative who
represented Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel in dealings with
Mexico's Beltran Leyva gang. He had escaped from a Colombian prison in
2001 and was wanted on drug charges in the US.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 30, Morocco's King
Mohammed VI condemned Algeria's continuing closure of their common
border, despite repeated calls by Rabat for it to be reopened. Algiers
has set a global settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara as a
precondition for reopening the border, which it closed in 1994 after
Morocco claimed Algerian secret service agents were behind an Islamist
extremist attack in Marrakesh.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Nigerian security
officials said rival militant factions in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger
Delta have clashed in an apparent turf war, killing at least four
people.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, The UN said hunger in
North Korea is at its worst since the 1990s, prompting the resumption
of emergency UN food shipments after a two-year hiatus.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Pakistan fierce
fighting erupted in the restive Swat valley, killing 25 militants and
four soldiers and undermining the government's strategy of offering
peace deals to pro-Taliban insurgents. Sher Ali, an insurgent commander
known as Mullah Toor, was killed in the fighting.
(AP, 7/30/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 30, The papal nuncio said
Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo (57) has received
unprecedented permission from the pope to resign as bishop, ending a
dispute over his priestly status.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Alexander Tsygankov,
a Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last November, was
freed, hours before Russian PM Vladimir Putin was due to host the
country's prime minister.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Saudi Arabia's
Islamic religious police banned the sale dogs and cats as pets, as well
as walking them in public due to “the rising of phenomenon of men using
cats and dogs to make passes at women and pester families" as well as
"violating proper behavior in public squares and malls."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Sri Lankan war planes
bombed a suspected Tiger base in the north. The army launched a wave of
attacks against Tamil Tiger separatists in the north, sparking battles
that killed 24 rebels and one soldier.
(AFP, 7/30/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Turkey’s high court
narrowly voted against disbanding the ruling Justice and Development
Party, but cut off millions of dollars in state aid to the
Islamic-oriented party.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 30, Zimbabwe’s reserve
bank said it will drop 10 zeros from its hyper-inflated currency —
turning 10 billion dollars into one. President Robert Mugabe threatened
a state of emergency if businesses profiteer from the country's
economic and political unraveling.
(AP, 7/30/08)
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