June 30
1859 - French acrobat Charles Blondin, AKA Jean Francois Gravelet, walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1865 - Eight people, including Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, were convicted by a military commission of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. (Four defendants, including Surratt, were executed; Mudd was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.)
1908 - A powerful natural explosion from an asteroid rocked the Tunguska Basin in eastern Siberia, flattening hundreds of square miles of forest and resulting in tremors that could be felt hundreds of miles away.
1918 - Labor activist and socialist Eugene V. Debs was arrested in Cleveland, charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for a speech he’d made two weeks earlier denouncing U.S. involvement in World War I. (Debs was sentenced to prison and disenfranchised for life.)
1921 - President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1934 - Adolf Hitler secured his position in the Nazi party by a "blood purge," ridding the party of other leaders such as Ernst Roehm and Kurt von Schleicher.
1936 - Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind was published.
1958 - The U.S. Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20.
1963 - Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.
1971 - A Soviet space mission ended in tragedy when three cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 were found dead of asphyxiation inside their capsule after it had returned to Earth.
1971 - The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the voting age to 18, was ratified by the when Ohio became the 38th state to approve it.
1971 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, freed The New York Times and The Washington Post to resume immediate publication of articles based on the secret Pentagon Papers on the origins of the Vietnam War.
1982 - The proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expired, having failed to receive the number of ratifications required for its adoption, despite having its seven-year deadline extended by three years.
1985 - Thirty-nine American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held 17 days.
1986 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in Bowers v. Hardwick, ruled 5-4 that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. (However, the nation's highest court effectively reversed this decision in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.)
1998 - The remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.
2001 - Doctors implanted a dual-purpose pacemaker in Vice President Dick Cheney's chest.
2004 - The international Cassini spacecraft entered Saturn's orbit after a nearly seven-year journey.
2005 - Spain legalized gay marriage.
2009 - American soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl went missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan, and was later confirmed to have been captured by insurgents. (Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014 in exchange for five Taliban detainees.)
2011 - The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued an indictment naming four suspects in the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, including a high-ranking Hezbollah militant linked to the 1983 truck bombings at the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait.
2013 - Nineteen elite firefighters known as members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed battling a wildfire northwest of Phoenix after a change in wind direction pushed the flames back toward their position.
2016 - Saying it was the right thing to do, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that transgender people would be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military, ending one of the last bans on service in the armed forces.
2016 - President Barack Obama signed a rescue package for financially strapped Puerto Rico, which was facing more than $70 billion in debt and a major payment due the next day.
2020 - Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a landmark bill retiring the last state flag bearing the Confederate battle emblem.
Birthdays
29 - Nicole Franzel (reality star)
33 - Sean Marquette (actor)
35 - Alicia Fox (professional wrestler)
36 - Cody Rhodes (professional wrestler)
36 - Michael Phelps (swimmer)
37 - Fantasia (singer)
38 - Cheryl Ann Tweedy (singer)
38 - Cole Swindell (country singer)
39 - Susannah Flood (actress)
39 - Lizzy Caplan (actress)
40 - Tom Burke (actor)
42 - Rick Gonzalez (actor)
49 - Molly Parker (actress)
50 - Monica Potter (actress)
51 - Brian Bloom (actor)
52 - Tony Rock (actor/comedian)
55 - Peter Outerbridge (actor)
55 - Mike Tyson (boxer)
58 - Rupert Graves (actor)
59 - Deirdre Lovejoy (actress)
62 - Vincent D'Onofrio (actor)
65 - David Alan Grier (actor/comedian)
69 - David Garrison (actor)
71 - Leonard Whiting (actor)
85 - Nancy Dussault (actress)
88 - Lea Massari (actress)
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Today in Sports History - June 30
1962 - Los Angeles Dodger Sandy Koufax pitched his first no-hitter in a game against the New York Mets.
1965 - NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle grants ownership of the Atlanta Falcons to Rankin Smith for a then-record $8.5 million.
1975 - Muhammad Ali defends his heavyweight championship against Joe Bugner in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
1978 - Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Giants becomes the 12th player in major league history to hit 500 career home runs.
1982 - Fans vote to name the new New Jersey NHL franchise the "Devils".
1984 - The longest professional football game took place in the United States Football League (USFL). The Los Angeles Express beat the Michigan Panthers 27-21 after 93 minutes and 33 seconds.
1993 - The Orlando Magic select Michigan center Chris Webber with the first pick in the NBA Draft. (The Magic then trade Webber to the Golden State Warriors.)
1994 - The U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of the national championship and banned her from the organization for life for an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.
1995 - Eddie Murray of the Cleveland Indians becomes the 20th player in major league history with 3,000 career hits.
1999 - The Chicago Bulls select Duke forward Elton Brand with the first pick in the NBA Draft.
2002 - Brazil defeated Germany 2-0 in Yokohama, Japan to win a record fifth World Cup title.
2019 - In a massive day of signings on the first day of free agency, the Brooklyn Nets sign Kevin Durant from the Golden State Warriors, Kyrie Irving from the Boston Celtics and DeAndre Jordan from the New York Knicks.
2020 - Baseball’s minor leagues canceled their season because of the pandemic; more than half of the 160 teams were said to be in danger of failing.
1859 - French acrobat Charles Blondin, AKA Jean Francois Gravelet, walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1865 - Eight people, including Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, were convicted by a military commission of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. (Four defendants, including Surratt, were executed; Mudd was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.)
1908 - A powerful natural explosion from an asteroid rocked the Tunguska Basin in eastern Siberia, flattening hundreds of square miles of forest and resulting in tremors that could be felt hundreds of miles away.
1918 - Labor activist and socialist Eugene V. Debs was arrested in Cleveland, charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for a speech he’d made two weeks earlier denouncing U.S. involvement in World War I. (Debs was sentenced to prison and disenfranchised for life.)
1921 - President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1934 - Adolf Hitler secured his position in the Nazi party by a "blood purge," ridding the party of other leaders such as Ernst Roehm and Kurt von Schleicher.
1936 - Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind was published.
1958 - The U.S. Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20.
1963 - Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.
1971 - A Soviet space mission ended in tragedy when three cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 were found dead of asphyxiation inside their capsule after it had returned to Earth.
1971 - The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the voting age to 18, was ratified by the when Ohio became the 38th state to approve it.
1971 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, freed The New York Times and The Washington Post to resume immediate publication of articles based on the secret Pentagon Papers on the origins of the Vietnam War.
1982 - The proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expired, having failed to receive the number of ratifications required for its adoption, despite having its seven-year deadline extended by three years.
1985 - Thirty-nine American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held 17 days.
1986 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in Bowers v. Hardwick, ruled 5-4 that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. (However, the nation's highest court effectively reversed this decision in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.)
1998 - The remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.
2001 - Doctors implanted a dual-purpose pacemaker in Vice President Dick Cheney's chest.
2004 - The international Cassini spacecraft entered Saturn's orbit after a nearly seven-year journey.
2005 - Spain legalized gay marriage.
2009 - American soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl went missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan, and was later confirmed to have been captured by insurgents. (Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014 in exchange for five Taliban detainees.)
2011 - The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued an indictment naming four suspects in the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, including a high-ranking Hezbollah militant linked to the 1983 truck bombings at the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait.
2013 - Nineteen elite firefighters known as members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed battling a wildfire northwest of Phoenix after a change in wind direction pushed the flames back toward their position.
2016 - Saying it was the right thing to do, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that transgender people would be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military, ending one of the last bans on service in the armed forces.
2016 - President Barack Obama signed a rescue package for financially strapped Puerto Rico, which was facing more than $70 billion in debt and a major payment due the next day.
2020 - Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a landmark bill retiring the last state flag bearing the Confederate battle emblem.
Birthdays
29 - Nicole Franzel (reality star)
33 - Sean Marquette (actor)
35 - Alicia Fox (professional wrestler)
36 - Cody Rhodes (professional wrestler)
36 - Michael Phelps (swimmer)
37 - Fantasia (singer)
38 - Cheryl Ann Tweedy (singer)
38 - Cole Swindell (country singer)
39 - Susannah Flood (actress)
39 - Lizzy Caplan (actress)
40 - Tom Burke (actor)
42 - Rick Gonzalez (actor)
49 - Molly Parker (actress)
50 - Monica Potter (actress)
51 - Brian Bloom (actor)
52 - Tony Rock (actor/comedian)
55 - Peter Outerbridge (actor)
55 - Mike Tyson (boxer)
58 - Rupert Graves (actor)
59 - Deirdre Lovejoy (actress)
62 - Vincent D'Onofrio (actor)
65 - David Alan Grier (actor/comedian)
69 - David Garrison (actor)
71 - Leonard Whiting (actor)
85 - Nancy Dussault (actress)
88 - Lea Massari (actress)
===========================================
Today in Sports History - June 30
1962 - Los Angeles Dodger Sandy Koufax pitched his first no-hitter in a game against the New York Mets.
1965 - NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle grants ownership of the Atlanta Falcons to Rankin Smith for a then-record $8.5 million.
1975 - Muhammad Ali defends his heavyweight championship against Joe Bugner in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
1978 - Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Giants becomes the 12th player in major league history to hit 500 career home runs.
1982 - Fans vote to name the new New Jersey NHL franchise the "Devils".
1984 - The longest professional football game took place in the United States Football League (USFL). The Los Angeles Express beat the Michigan Panthers 27-21 after 93 minutes and 33 seconds.
1993 - The Orlando Magic select Michigan center Chris Webber with the first pick in the NBA Draft. (The Magic then trade Webber to the Golden State Warriors.)
1994 - The U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of the national championship and banned her from the organization for life for an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.
1995 - Eddie Murray of the Cleveland Indians becomes the 20th player in major league history with 3,000 career hits.
1999 - The Chicago Bulls select Duke forward Elton Brand with the first pick in the NBA Draft.
2002 - Brazil defeated Germany 2-0 in Yokohama, Japan to win a record fifth World Cup title.
2019 - In a massive day of signings on the first day of free agency, the Brooklyn Nets sign Kevin Durant from the Golden State Warriors, Kyrie Irving from the Boston Celtics and DeAndre Jordan from the New York Knicks.
2020 - Baseball’s minor leagues canceled their season because of the pandemic; more than half of the 160 teams were said to be in danger of failing.
