By: HISTORY.com Editors

1922

Former President Taft dedicates Lincoln Memorial

Published: November 16, 2009Last Updated: January 31, 2025

Former President William Howard Taft dedicates the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall on May 30, 1922. At the time, Taft was serving as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. A crowd gathered on the Mall to witness the ceremony.

The neoclassical monument honors 16th U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. Congress authorized construction of a monument to Lincoln on the Capitol grounds in 1867 (two years after his assassination), but it took until 1911 for funding to be approved; construction was then slowed due to World War I. The monument's design, by architect Henry Bacon, was modeled after the Parthenon in Athens. Inside features a 19-foot-high white marble statue of a seated Lincoln by artist Daniel Chester French. An inscription above it reads, "In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever."

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 May 30th

1431

Joan of Arc is burned at the stake for heresy

19-year-old Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy.

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1593

Playwright Christopher Marlowe killed in tavern brawl

Playwright Christopher Marlowe, 29, is killed in a brawl over a bar tab on this day. Marlowe, born two months before William Shakespeare, was the son of a Canterbury shoemaker. A bright student, he won scholarships to prestigious schools and earned his B.A. from Cambridge in 1584. He was nearly denied his master’s degree in […]

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1806

Future president Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel

On May 30, 1806, future President Andrew Jackson kills a man who accused him of cheating on a horse race bet and then insulted his wife, Rachel. Contemporaries described Jackson, who had already served in Tennessee’s Senate and was practicing law at the time of the duel, as argumentative, physically violent and fond of dueling […]

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1868

Civil War dead honored on Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day

In May 1868, Americans came together to in the first widespread observation of what would become Memorial Day.

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1899

Bandit Pearl Hart holds up an Arizona stagecoach

The amateur bandit Pearl Hart and her boyfriend hold up an Arizona stagecoach on May 30, 1899. Little is known about Pearl Hart’s early life. She was born in Ontario, Canada in 1871, and moved to Toronto as a child. She eloped when she was 16, but her husband abused her and the marriage did […]

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1911

First Indianapolis 500 held

On May 30, 1911, Ray Harroun drives his single-seater Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, now one of the world’s most famous motor racing competitions. The Indiana automobile dealer Carl Fisher first proposed building a private auto testing facility in 1906, in order to address car manufacturers’ inability to test potential top […]

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1913

The First Balkan War ends

On May 30, 1913, a peace treaty is signed ending the First Balkan War, in which the newly aligned Slavic nations of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece had driven Turkish forces out of Macedonia, a territory of the Ottoman Empire located in the tumultuous Balkans region of southeastern Europe. After rebellion in Macedonia—led by a […]

1922

Warren G. Harding becomes the first president to be heard on the radio

On May 30, 1922, President Warren G. Harding becomes the first president to have his voice transmitted by radio while addressing a crowd at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. The broadcast heralded a revolutionary shift in how presidents addressed the American public. It was not until three years later, however, that a president would […]

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1934

Nissan Motor Company founded

On May 30, 1934, the Tokyo-based Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha (Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in English) takes on a new name: Nissan Motor Company. Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha had been established in December 1933. The company’s new name, adopted in June 1934, was an abbreviation for Nippon Sangyo, a “zaibatsu”(or holding company) belonging to Tobata’s founder, Yoshisuke Aikawa. Nissan […]

1:46m read

1942

Japanese American Fred Korematsu is arrested for resisting internment

On May 30, 1942, Fred Korematsu is arrested in San Leandro, California for resisting internment under President Franklin Roosevelt’s controversial Executive Order 9066, which called for the incarceration of nearly all Japanese Americans in the United States in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Following his conviction and incarceration in a Utah camp, […]

1:28m read

1943

Auschwitz gets a new doctor: “the Angel of Death”

On May 30, 1943, the extermination camp at Auschwitz, Poland, receives a new doctor, 32-year-old Josef Mengele, a man who will earn the nickname “the Angel of Death.” Born March 16, 1911, in Bavaria, Mengele studied philosophy under Alfred Rosenberg, whose racial theories highly influenced him. In 1934, already a member of the Nazi Party, […]

1967

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is published

On May 30, 1967, Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Cien años de soledad, or One Hundred Years of Solitude, is first published. The book, often referred to as a defining work of Latin American literature, made Márquez a prime candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he was awarded in 1982. One Hundred Years of Solitude follows […]

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1967

Republic of Biafra proclaimed

After suffering through years of suppression under Nigeria’s military government, the breakaway state of Biafra proclaims its independence from Nigeria. In 1960, Nigeria gained independence from Britain. Six years later, the Muslim Hausas in northern Nigeria began massacring the Christian Igbos in the region, prompting tens of thousands of Igbos to flee to the east, […]

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1971

Mariner 9 departs for Mars

The U.S. unmanned space probe Mariner 9 is launched on a mission to gather scientific information on Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. The 1,116-pound spacecraft entered the planet’s orbit on November 13, 1971, and circled Mars twice each day for almost a year, photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere with infrared and […]

1:20m read

1990

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Washington for a summit

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Washington, D.C., for three days of talks with President George Bush. The summit meeting centered on the issue of Germany and its place in a changing Europe. When Gorbachev arrived for this second summit meeting with President Bush, his situation in the Soviet Union was perilous. The Soviet economy, […]

1:58m read

1997

NYC teacher Jonathan Levin is tortured and killed by his former student

Jonathan Levin, a popular 31-year-old English teacher, is stabbed and shot to death in his Upper West Side apartment in New York City. The son of Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin, Jonathan was known by many to be wealthy. When he did not show up for work, investigators searched his apartment and found his lifeless […]

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Citation Information

Article Title: Former President Taft dedicates Lincoln Memorial
Author: HISTORY.com Editors
Website Name: History
URL: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-30/former-president-taft-dedicates-lincoln-memorial

Date Accessed: October 29, 2026
Publisher: A&E Television Networks
Last Updated: January 31, 2025
Original Published Date: November 16, 2009

Former President Taft dedicates Lincoln Memorial

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Citation Information