Daily Calendar for Thursday, January 30, 2025

Died

  • Betsy Ross (American seamstress and upholsterer) –
  • Orville Wright (American aviator ) –
  • Mahatma Gandhi (Indian spiritual and political leader) –
  • John Bardeen (physicist) –
  • Pierre Boulle (author) –
  • Coretta Scott King (civil rights activist; widow of Martin Luther King Jr.) –
  • Wendy Wasserstein (Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright) –
  • Sidney Sheldon (author & producer) –
  • Chita Rivera (singer, actress, and dancer) –

Born

  • Walter J. Damrosch (composer) –
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32nd U.S. president) –
  • David Wayne (actor) –
  • Dick Martin (comedian) –
  • Dorothy Malone (actress) –
  • Gene Hackman (actor) –
  • Vanessa Redgrave (actress) –
  • Boris Spassky (chessmaster) –
  • Dick Cheney (former secretary of defense and U.S. vice president) –
  • Marty Balin (singer) –
  • Lynn Harrell (cellist) –
  • Phil Collins (musician) –
  • Christian Bale (actor) –
  • Olivia Colman (actress) –

Events

  • Funds were approved to purchase Thomas Jefferson’s library in order to rebuild the Library of Congress, which had been destroyed by the British during the War of 1812–
  • Yerba Buena, a U.S. town of 200 people, was renamed San Francisco–
  • Great Britain and Japan signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance–
  • The Original Dixieland Jazz Band released Darktown Strutters’ Ball, the first commercial jazz recording–
  • Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany–
  • The Lone Ranger made its radio debut–
  • Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated–
  • 30 millionth customer added to U.S. electrical utilities–
  • President Kennedy and Aleksei I. Adzhubei, editor of Izvestia, principal Russian newspaper, held conversations at the White House–
  • The Beatles gave their last public performance on the roof of their Apple Corps headquarters–
  • Pakistan became independent of Great Britain–
  • 31-lb. 12-oz. bluefish caught, Hatteras, North Carolina–
  • Andrew Young was sworn in as the first African American ambassador to the United Nations–
  • David Bradley, the man who wrote the computer code CtrlAltDelete (forces computers to restart when they will no longer follow other commands), retired from IBM after 28.5 years with the company–
  • A buffalo escaped from an auction in South Dakota and ended up in a Grand Rapids department store dressing room where it spent a couple of hours staring into a mirror–

Weather

  • Two-day storm brought Birmingham, Alabama 11 inches of snow–
  • Great Buffalo Blizzard abated after 3 days: 75 mph winds caused whiteouts and huge drifts that paralyzed the city–
  • An avalanche shut down a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway along the B.C.-Alberta border–
  • In northern Ohio, a train traveling in high winds derailed on a bridge over Sandusky Bay, sending several freight cars into the water–