All-Union Congress of Soviets

USSR established

Born on This Day

"Maria" Red Carpet - The 81st Venice International Film Festival

Patti Smith

1946 -

Singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist best known for her influential punk rock album "Horses."

2023-24 Los Angeles Lakers Media Day

LeBron James

1984 -

Basketball icon who won NBA titles with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and LA Lakers.

The Celebrity Apprentice - Season 15

Laila Ali

1977 -

Boxer and daughter of Muhammad Ali. Remained undefeated in her career and was world champ in multiple weight classes.

Patti SmithWireImage

LeBron JamesNBAE via Getty Images

Laila AliNBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via

1968

DEC30

In a college gym in Spokane, Washington, a concertgoer makes the first live (bootleg) recording of rock band Led Zeppelin, five nights into their first US tour. An opening act for Vanilla Fudge, they were mistakenly billed as "Len Zefflin."

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 December 30th

Gadsden Purchase helps establish southern U.S. border

James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute over the location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, and established the final boundaries of the southern United States. For the price […]

1:08m read read

Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo is born

Hideki Tojo, prime minister of Japan during the war, is born in Tokyo. After graduating from the Imperial Military Academy and the Military Staff College, Tojo was sent to Berlin as Japan’s military attache after World War I. Having already earned a reputation for sternness and discipline, Tojo was given command of the 1st Infantry […]

1:58m read read

Fire breaks out in Chicago theater

A fire in the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois, kills more than 600 people on December 30, 1903. It was the deadliest theater fire in U.S. history. Blocked fire exits and the lack of a fire-safety plan caused most of the deaths. The Iroquois Theater, designed by Benjamin Marshall in a Renaissance style, was highly […]

2:46m read read

Rasputin is murdered

Sometime over the course of the night and the early morning of December 29-30, 1916, Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, a self-proclaimed holy man, is murdered by Russian nobles eager to end his influence over the royal family. Rasputin, a Siberian-born muzhik, or peasant, who underwent a religious conversion as a teenager and proclaimed himself a healer […]

2:02m read read

Sit-down strike begins in Flint

At 8 p.m. on December 30, 1936, in one of the first sit-down strikes in the United States, autoworkers occupy the General Motors Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint, Michigan. The autoworkers were striking to win recognition of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as the only bargaining agent for GM’s workers; they also wanted […]

2:38m read read

Ferdinand Marcos inaugurated president of the Philippines

Former Philippines Senate president Ferdinand Marcos is inaugurated president of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation. Marcos’ regime would span 20 years and become increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. Ferdinand Marcos was a law student in the late 1930s, when he was tried for the assassination of a political opponent of his politician father. Convicted in 1939, […]

2:46m read read

Led Zeppelin recorded live for the first time

On December 30, 1968, The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington, ran an advertisement for a concert at Gonzaga University featuring “The Vanilla Fudge, with Len Zefflin”—a concert of which a bootleg recording would later emerge that represents the first-ever live Led Zeppelin performance captured on tape. Within a year, they’d be big. Within two, they’d be […]

1:48m read read

An anti-abortion activist goes on a murder spree

John Salvi III walks into two separate abortion clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts, and shoots workers with a rifle, killing two receptionists and wounding five other employees. He was captured the next day after firing 23 shots at a Norfolk, Virginia, medical clinic. Salvi, who worked in a beauty salon in New Hampshire before his murderous […]

1:24m read read

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