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Spanish retreat from Aztec capital

Born on This Day

Lena Horne

1917 - 2010

Singer, actress and civil rights activist known for her work on stage and screen, including "Stormy Weather."

Michael Phelps

1985 -

The most decorated athlete in Olympic history, who swam his way to 28 medals—including 23 gold.

Vincent D'Onofrio

1959 -

Actor known for his versatile work in "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Full Metal Jacket" and "Men in Black."

Lena HorneBettmann Archive

Michael PhelpsGetty Images

Vincent D'OnofrioGetty Images for IMDb

1908

JUN30

A fiery explosion rocks Siberia’s Tunguska region, flattening 800 square miles of forest. Believed to be caused by an asteroid or comet, it remains Earth’s biggest cosmic collision in recorded history.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on June 30th

Daredevil crosses Niagara Falls on tightrope

Jean Francois Gravelet, a Frenchman known professionally as Charles Blondin, becomes the first daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. The feat, which was performed 160 feet above the Niagara gorge just down river from the Falls, was witnessed by some 5,000 spectators. Wearing pink tights and a yellow tunic, Blondin crossed a […]

Wounded soldiers evacuated from the Little Big Horn by steamboat

After a slow two-day march, the wounded soldiers from the Battle of the Little Big Horn reach the steamboat Far West. The Far West had been leased by the U.S. Army for the duration of the 1876 campaign against the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne tribes of the Northern Plains. Under the command of the […]

Einstein publishes his groundbreaking theory of relativity

On June 30, 1905, Albert Einstein publishes “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies),” a paper that sets out his theory of special relativity, in the German physics journal Annalen der Physik. Einstein’s groundbreaking work shatters the foundations of physics. After attending the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, Switzerland, Einstein worked at the […]

Hitler purges members of his own Nazi party in Night of the Long Knives

In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The event became known as the Night of the Long Knives. The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members […]

“Gone With the Wind” published

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, one of the best-selling novels of all time and the basis for a blockbuster 1939 movie, is published on June 30, 1936. In 1926, Mitchell was forced to quit her job as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal to recover from a series of physical injuries. With too much […]

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First Chevy Corvette rolls off the assembly line

On June 30, 1953, workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, watch as the first completed Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon, rolls off the assembly line. It was one of just 300 Corvettes made that year. The idea for the Corvette originated with General Motors’ pioneering designer Harley […]

Soviet cosmonauts perish in reentry disaster

The three Soviet cosmonauts who served as the first crew of the world’s first space station die when their spacecraft depressurizes during reentry. On June 6, the cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev were launched into space aboard Soyuz 11 on a mission to dock and enter Salyut 1, the Soviet space station […]

“Do the Right Thing” released in theaters

On June 30, 1989, the writer-director Spike Lee’s celebrated third feature film, Do the Right Thing—a provocative drama that takes place on one block in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, on the hottest day of the year—is released in select U.S. theaters. The block in question is home to Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the only white-owned business in […]

Misty Copeland becomes American Ballet Theater’s first Black principal dancer

Misty Copeland becomes the first African American woman promoted to principal dancer in the 75-year history of the American Ballet Theatre, one of the leading classical ballet companies in the world. Growing up one of six siblings in an unstable home environment in Southern California, Copeland quickly earned prodigy status despite not starting ballet […]

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