Today in History - April 30
Return to home
c30AD Apr 30,
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Christ died on hill of Golgotha,
Jerusalem. His path along the Via Dolorosa was later disputed as to
whether he was tried by Pontius Pilate at the palace of Herod or at the
Roman fortress of Antonia. His death was at an abandoned quarry, the
site of today’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1998 Robert Funk and
the Jesus Seminar published “The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the
Authentic Deeds of Jesus.” The group had published an earlier work “The
Five Gospels,” in which the sayings of Jesus were examined.
(V.D.-H.K.p.16)(SFC, 3/27/97, p.C2)(SFEC, 4/12/98,
BR p.8)(HN, 4/30/98)
311 Apr 30, Emperor Galerius
recognized Christians legally in the Roman Empire.
(MC, 4/30/02)
313 Apr 30, Co-emperor Licinius
unified the whole of the eastern empire under his own rule.
(HN, 4/30/98)
535 Apr 30, Amalaswintha, queen of
Ostrogoten, was murdered.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1250 Apr 30, King Louis IX of
France was ransomed for one million dollars. The Mamluk dynasty exacted
240 tons of silver for his release.
(HN, 4/30/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1309 Apr 30, Kazimierz III de
Great, King of Poland (1333-70), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1349 Apr 30, Jewish community at
Radolszell, Germany, was exterminated.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1396 Apr 30, Crusaders and the
Earl of Nevers departed from Dijon.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1492 Apr 30, Spain announced it
would expel all Jews.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1494 Apr 30, Christopher Columbus
arrived in Guantanamo Bay on his 2nd voyage to the Americas.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1527 Apr 30, Henry VIII and King
Francis of France signed the treaty of Westminster.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1563 Apr 30, Jews were expelled
from France by order of Charles VI.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1602 Apr 30, William Lilly,
astrologer, author, almanac compiler, was born in England.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1629 Apr 30, John Endecott became
governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
(http://38.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EN/ENDECOTT_JOHN.htm)
1651 Apr 30, Jean-Baptiste de la
Salle, French priest, theorist, saint, was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1671 Apr 30, Peter Zrinyi (49),
Hungarian banished to Croatia, was beheaded.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1695 Apr 30, William Congreve's
"Love for Love," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1708 Apr 30, Simon de Vries, book
seller, writer (Unequal), died.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1722 Apr 30, Game of Billiards was
mentioned in New England Courant.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1725 Apr 30, Spain withdrew from
the Quadruple Alliance.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1777 Apr 30, Karl Friedrich Gauss,
German mathematician, was born. He researched infinitesimal calculus,
algebra and astronomy. He was also a pioneer in topology and is
considered one of the world's great mathematicians. His methods in
World War II helped disarm magnetic mines
(HN, 4/30/99)
1789 Apr 30, George Washington was
inaugurated and took office in New York as the first president of the
United States. He took his oath of office on the balcony of Federal
Hall on Wall Street and spoke the words “So help me God,” which all
future US presidents have repeated. The oath as prescribed by the
Constitution makes no mention of God of the Bible.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.W4)(AH,
4/07, p.31)
1792 Apr 30, John Montague (73),
4th Earl of Sandwich, English Naval minister, died.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1798 Apr 30, US Department of Navy
formed.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1803 Apr 30, The US under Thomas
Jefferson signed a treaty that accepted the purchase of the Louisiana
Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte's government of France for 60 million
francs or about $15 mil. The area included most of the thirteen states
that lie between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.
American envoys sent to France were originally instructed to buy only
the port city of New Orleans and were astonished when Napoleon,
abandoning plans for an American empire, offered them all of Louisiana.
The United States doubled in size through the Louisiana Purchase. The
federal government spent less than $8 million in operations and
borrowed the money needed for the purchase.
(CO, 11/10/95)(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)(AP, 4/30/97)(HN,
4/30/98)(HNPD, 5/1/99)
1808 Apr 30, Italian Pellegrini
Turri built the 1st practical typewriter for the blind Countess
Carolina Fantoni da Fivizono, the world's first typist.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(MC,
4/30/02)
1812 Apr 30, Louisiana became the
18th state.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)
1849 Apr 30, Giuseppe Garibaldi,
Italian republican patriot and guerrilla leader, repulsed a French
attack on Rome.
(HN, 4/30/98)(ON, 10/06, p.5)
1852 Apr 30, A strong tornado hit
New Harmony, Indiana, killing 16 people.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.D8)
1852 Apr 30, Anton Rubinstein’s
opera "Dmitri Donskoi," premiered in St Petersburg.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1858 Apr 30, Mary Scott Lord
Dimmick, Pres. B. Harrison's first lady, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1859 Apr 30, The California state
legislature granted a charter to St. Ignatius Academy in San Francisco.
The school then changed its name to St. Ignatius College with the right
to confer degrees.
(GenIV, Winter
04/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_San_Francisco)
1860 Apr 30, Navaho Indians
attacked Fort Defiance (Canby).
(MC, 4/30/02)
1861 Apr 30, President Lincoln
ordered Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1864 Apr 30, Work began on the
Dams along the Red River which would allow Union General Nathaniel
Banks’ troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1864 Apr 30, New York became the
1st state to charge for a hunting license.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1865 Apr 30-May 1, Gen Sherman's
"Haines's Bluff" at Snyder's Mill, Virginia.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1869 Apr 30, Hawaiian YMCA was
organized.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1870 Apr 30, Franz Lehár,
operetta composer, was born. He is best known for "The Marry Widow" and
"The Land of Smiles."
(HN, 4/30/99)
1871 Apr 30, Anglo and Mexican
vigilantes killed 118 Apaches at Camp Grant, Arizona, and kidnapped 28
children.
(www.desertusa.com/mag98/april/stories/campgrant1.html)
1877 Apr 30, Alice B. Toklas
(d.1967), expatriate American, was born. She was associated with
Gertrude Stein, who wrote "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas"
(1933).
(HN,
4/30/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_B._Toklas)
1885 Apr 30, Boston Pops Orchestra
formed.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1888 Apr 30, John Crowe Ransom,
poet and critic, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1889 Apr 30, Washington's
inauguration became the first U.S. national holiday.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1894 Apr 30, Giuseppe Farnara and
Francis Polti were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for
attempted terrorism in London.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.65)
1900 Apr 30, Hawaii was organized
as a U.S. territory. [see Feb 22]
(AP, 4/30/97)
1900 Apr 30, Engineer John Luther
"Casey" Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad was killed in a
Cannonball Express wreck near Vaughan, Miss., after staying at the
controls in an effort to save the passengers.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1902 Apr 30, Debussy's opera
"Pelleas et Melisande" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1904 Apr 30, At 1:06 p.m.
President Theodore Roosevelt officially opened the St. Louis World’s
Fair commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Although
the Fair was originally scheduled to open in 1903, the opening was
delayed for a year while the elaborate fairgrounds were completed.
Visitors were awed by 142 miles of exhibits shown in palatial buildings
like Festival Hall the centerpiece of the fair boasting an auditorium
seating 3,500 and the largest pipe organ in the world. Other wonders
seen at the St. Louis World’s Fair were the Liberty Bell, ice cream
cones. Food vendors, Arnold Fornachou (ice cream) and Ernest Hamwi
(sweet, rolled wafers), collaborated for the ice cream cones. In 1903
Italo Marconi received a patent for pastry cornets to hold ice cream.
Charles Menches sold ice cream at the fair and an anonymous Syrian sold
the zalabia pastry in the next booth.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFC, 6/24/00, p.B3)
1904 Apr 30, The St. Louis World’s
Fair popularized the all-American hamburger. The fair lasted 7 months
and inspired the phrase "Meet Me in St. Louis." Cass Gilbert designed
the art museum in Foret park, the only building left over from the
fair. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition the temperatures in St.
Louis soared and hot-tea vendor Richard Blechynden began pouring his
tea over ice thus the invention of iced-tea. The fair popularized
sausage in a bun, the hot dog with prepared mustard and the ice cream
cone.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 11/17/96, Par
p.19)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Z1 p.8)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.C3)
1904 The 3rd modern Olympics were
held at the St. Louis World’s Fair. 1,505 contestants from 7 countries
participated.
(PCh, 1992, p.658)
1904 Although invented in Waco,
Texas in the 1880s, Dr Pepper first received national exposure at the
St. Louis World‘s Fair.
(HNQ, 10/25/00)
1909 Apr 30, Juliana, Queen of the
Netherlands, was born. She fled during the Nazi occupation and
abdicated in favor of her daughter Beatrix.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1911 Apr 30, Portugal approved
woman suffrage.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1912 Apr 30, Eve Arden (Eunice
Quedens), actress, was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1919 Apr 30, US postal workers
discovered 30 booby-trap bombs in the national mail system, targeting
several members of congress and other public figures. Investigators
later implicated a network of anarchists and radicals who were rounded
up and deported.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.B2)
1921 Apr 30, Pope Benedict XV
issued his encyclical "On Dante."
(MC, 4/30/02)
1924 Apr 30, Sheldon Harnick,
lyricist (Fiorello, Fiddler on the Roof), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1927 Apr 30, Princess Juliana got
a seat in Dutch Council of State.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1930 Apr 30, The Soviet Union
proposed military alliance with France and Great Britain.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1933 Apr 30, Willie Nelson,
country singer who sang “On the Road Again” and “To All the Girls I’ve
Loved Before,” was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1936 Apr 30, The San Francisco
Chronicle reported that the Park-O-Meter has been recommended by Chief
Administrative Officer Alfred Cleary. A trial plan called for 50 meters
on Market St. charging 10 cents for 20 minutes.
(SSFC, 4/24/11, DB p.46)
1938 Apr 30, Larry [Van Cott]
Niven, US sci-fi author (5 Hugo, Neutron Star), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1939 Apr 30, The New York World’s
Fair, billed as a look at "the world of tomorrow," officially opened.
NY Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia mandated that the city's nude dancers cover
up during the fair. The cover-up evolved into the G-string and later
the thong. The General Motors exhibit was titled Futurama. Philo T.
Farnsworth premiered his television at the fair. AT&T presented its
first Picture Phone at the World's Fair. Salvador Dali created a
pavilion that was called “Dream of Venus” and described as the “funny
house of tomorrow.” In 2000 Miles Beller authored "Dream of Venus (Or
Living Pictures): A Novel of the 1939 New York world’s Fair." National
Presto Industries introduced the home pressure cooker at the fair.
(AP, 4/30/97)(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A8)(SFEC, 4/16/00, BR
p.7)(NYTBR, 2/2/03, p.20) (www.imdb.com/title/tt0149460/trivia)(WSJ,
12/27/08, p.A7)
1941 April 30, Iraqi pro-German
junta leader Rashid Ali ordered 9,000 troops to surround Habaniyah and
prepare to take it. The British troops, supported by Assyrian and local
infantry, defeated three Iraqi brigades with a few hundred troops and
96 aircraft. By the end of the battle, British bombers flying
from Habaniyah destroyed the entire Iraqi air force. The ground troops,
aided by reinforcements, launched a counterattack, took control of
Baghdad and reinstalled a friendly government.
(AP, 7/5/03)
1943 Apr 30, Pius XII wrote a
letter to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin and referred to the
extermination of the Jews. His concluding thoughts stated: “Unhappily
in the present state of affairs, we can bring no help other than our
prayers.”
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)
1943 Apr 30, The British submarine
HMS Seraph dropped ‘the man who never was,” a dead man the British
planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean off the coast
of Spain.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1943 Apr 30, Bergen-Belsen,
located near Hanover, formed as a POW camp.
(HNQ, 4/13/00)(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Dutch struck against
forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Etty Hillesum, Dutch
diarist, died in Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Beatrice Potter Webb
(b.1858), British socialist, reformer and writer, died. Her books
included “My Apprenticeship” (1943).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Webb)
1944 Apr 30, Jill Clayburgh,
actress (Unmarried Woman, Semi-Tough), was born in NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1944 Apr 30, The 8th and 9th US
Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force Bomber Command began to fly sorties
into France and the Low Countries in preparation for the Allied
Expeditionary Force landing on Jun 6.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.B9)
1945 Apr 30, Annie Dillard, writer
(Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1945 Apr 30, "Arthur Godfrey Time"
made its debut on the CBS radio network.
(AP, 4/30/05)
1945 Apr 30, The show “Queen For
Today” began on the Mutual Broadcasting Company radio program. In 1956
it moved to television as Queen For a Day until 1964 with a 2nd run
from 1969-1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_for_a_Day)(WSJ,
2/4/08, p.B1)
1945 Apr 30, US troops attacked at
the Elbe.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1945 Apr 30, Lord Haw-Haw called
for a crusade against the Bolsheviks.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1945 Apr 30, Red Army opened an
attack on German Reichstag building in Berlin.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1945 Apr 30, The Russian Army
freed the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. They found 3,000 sickly
prisoners who had been unable to make the march north under the SS.
(AP, 4/17/05)
1945 Apr 30, Adolf Hitler (56)
committed suicide along with his wife of one day, Eva Braun (33), in
his Fuhrerbunker as Russian troops approached Berlin. Karl Donitz
became his successor. Their bodies were cremated and their remains
hastily buried in a shell hole in the Reich Chancellery garden just
hours before Berlin's fall. A few days later a Soviet officer showed
British troops Hitler's probable gravesite. In 1970 Russia’s KGB
ordered Hitler’s remained to be dug up, turned to powder and thrown
into the nearest river. In 1947 Hugh Trevor-Roper authored “The Last
Days of Hitler.” In 1973 Robert Payne authored a definitive biography.
In 1998 Ron Rosenbaum authored "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the
Origin of His Evil." In 1977 Robert G.L. Waite (d.1999) authored The
Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler." In 2002 Ingo Helm made a film for TV
titled "Hitler’s Money." In 2004 the German film “The Downfall”
portrayed the last days of Hitler.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNPD, 4/30/99)(WSJ,
8/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 10/11/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/02,
p.A14)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.48)(WSJ, 12/29/05, p.D8)
1945 Apr 30, Hanna Reitsch evaded
Soviet searchlights and fighters to reach temporary freedom in
German-held territory. During the final days of World War II, German
female test pilot Reitsch was ordered to fly General Ritter von Greim
60 miles to Berlin to personally accept Adolf Hitler’s appointment as
Supreme Commander of the German Luftwaffe. Flying her light plane
through heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire, Reitsch and her passenger
reached Hitler’s underground bunker safely, where they were among the
last to see the German dictator alive. Although both expected to die in
the bunker, Hitler ordered Reitsch and Greim to escape from Berlin to
continue the fight.
(HNPD, 4/27/00)
1947 Apr 30, President Truman
signed a measure officially changing the name of Boulder Dam to Hoover
Dam.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1948 Apr 30, The charter of the
Organization of American States (OAS) was signed in Bogota, Colombia.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1954 Apr 30, Jane Campion, New
Zealand film director (The Piano, A Portrait of a Lady), was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1954 Apr 30, KQED, SF-based public
television, began broadcasting.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.E1)
1955 Apr 30, West German unions
protested for 40-hour work week and more wages.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1956 Apr 30, Richard Farina, folk
singer (Reflections in a Crystal Wind), was born.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1956 Apr 30, Alben W. Barkley
(b.1877), the 35th Vice President of the US (1949-53), died in
Lexington, Va.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alben_W._Barkley)
1958 Apr 30, Britain's Life
Peerages Act 1958 allowed women to become members of the House of Lords.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1961 Apr 30, Willie Mays of the SF
Giants hit 4 home runs in a game with the Milwaukee Braves.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A18)
1961 Apr 30, Eastern Airlines
began the 1st shuttle flights began between Wash DC, Boston and NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1961 Apr 30, Premier Fidel Castro
of Cuba received the Lenin Peace Prize.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1962 Apr 30, Milton Obote took
over as prime minister of Uganda.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Uganda)
1968 Apr 30, U.S. Marines attacked
a division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1969 Apr 30, US troops in Vietnam
peaked at 543,000. Over 33,000 had already been killed.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)
1970 Apr 30, President Nixon
announced to a national TV audience that the United States was sending
troops into Cambodia “to win the just peace that we desire.” The action
that sparked widespread protest. U.S. troops invaded Cambodia to
disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas and to attack Communist border
sanctuaries. Calling the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operation
"indispensable," some 32,000 American and 48,000 South Vietnamese
troops captured large caches of supplies, but most Communist forces had
already been withdrawn. A storm of protest against expansion of the war
swept the United States and four days later four student protesters at
Ohio's Kent State University were shot dead by National Guardsmen.
(AP, 4/30/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNQ,
5/3/98)
1970 Apr 30, Inger Stevens
(b.1934, Stockholm-born star of TV’s “The Farmer’s Daughter,” died of
an overdose. For all intents and purposes, Ms. Stevens' death was a
suicide but following her death, it came out in the tabloids that she
had been secretly married to African-American Ike Jones since 1961. The
couple was estranged at the time of her death.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0828447/bio)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and a
group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi,
seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in Japan's
first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced to 12 years
in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP,
6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1973 Apr 30, President Nixon
announced the resignations of his aides H.R. Haldeman and John
Ehrlichman, along with Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and White
House counsel John Dean. Nixon announced that he would nominate Elliot
Richardson as US attorney general to oversee the Watergate
investigation.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A25)
1974 Apr 30, President Nixon
handed over partial transcripts of Watergate tape recordings.
(www.watergate.info/chronology/1974.shtml)
1975 Apr 30, The city of Saigon
fell to the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front forces. The
last American forces evacuated Saigon as South Vietnam surrendered
unconditionally to the Communist North Vietnamese. At 8:35 a.m. the
last Americans, ten Marines from the embassy, departed as North
Vietnamese troops pour into Saigon and encounter little resistance. By
11 a.m. the Viet Cong flag flew from the presidential palace. President
Minh broadcast a message of unconditional surrender. Graham Martin, the
US ambassador to South Vietnam, made a hasty departure. The city was
renamed Ho Chi Minh City and Nguyen Huu Tho was the first mayor. The
war left 58,200 Americans dead, 153,300 wounded, and 2,124 missing in
action. The Communists listed 1 million dead, 300,000 missing and 2
million dead civilians. President Gerald Ford, closing a chapter in
United States history, called upon Americans "to avoid recriminations
about the past, to look ahead to the many goals we share."
(SFC, 5/10/97,
p.A1)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1977 Apr 30, In Argentina 14 women
whose children had disappeared went to the Plaza de Mayo to demonstrate
their cause. Police said they could not stay there so they began to
walk around the pyramid in the center of the plaza. In 2006 they
completed their 1,500th and last demonstration [see Dec 1977].
(SSFC, 2/26/06, p.E3)
1980 Apr 30, In Pinole, Ca., Rena
Aguilar was stabbed to death. 4 days later as police closed in James R.
Odle shot and killed Officer Floyd Swartz. Odle was convicted and
sentenced to death but his competency was later questioned due to a
removed temporal lobe following a car accident. Swartz was the father
of Amber Swartz, born 4 months after his death. Amber Swartz-Garcia
disappeared in 1988.
(SFC, 2/7/01, p.A19)(SFC, 7/7/09, p.C5)
1980 Apr 30, Terrorists seized the
Iranian Embassy in London. Only after the incident was over did it
become known that Iraq had trained and armed the gunmen in order to try
to embarrass Iran.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_Siege)
1980 Apr 30, Juliana Z(1909-2004),
Queen of the Netherlands, abdicated. Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, was
crowned queen of Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_of_the_Netherlands)
1981 Apr 30, William Eugene Cox
and Annika Oestberg Deasy (27) robbed and killed Joseph Torre (58), a
restaurant owner, in Stockton, Ca. A few days later they killed Sgt.
Richard Helbush and stole his patrol car. They were both caught and
sentenced to long jail terms. Cox later hanged himself in jail. In 1999
Sweden called for the transfer of Deasy to Sweden under the 1983
Strasbourg Treaty, which provided for prisoner transfers. In 2009 a
Swedish court ruled that Annika Ostberg (55) would be released in 2011.
(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A13)(AP, 11/16/09)
1983 Apr 30, McKinley Morganfield
(68), better known as Muddy Waters, died. The US blues singer and
guitarist (Mad Love) was known as the King of the Blues. The
Mississippi-born guitarist revolutionized the genre in Chicago in the
1940s and 50s with his electric blues.
(HNQ, 1/28/99)(www.muddywaters.com/bio.html)
1986 Apr 30, Ranch foreman James
Hazelton (28) and brother-in-law Peter Sparagana (23) were murdered
near Huntsville, Texas, after they interrupted a burglary. Gary Johnson
(59) was later convicted of the murders and was executed on Jan 12,
2010.
(SFC, 1/13/10,
p.A6)(www.itemonline.com/local/local_story_011092452.html)
1987 Apr 30, President Reagan
welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to the White House.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1987 Apr 30, William Bennett, US
Education Secretary, called for mandatory AIDS testing for several
groups of people, including hospital patients and prison inmates.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1987 Apr 30, The Christian
Coalition, created by Pat Robertson, was incorporated.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Coalition_of_America)
1987 Apr 30, Pope John Paul II
began a five-day visit to West Germany.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1988 Apr 30, World Exposition,
Expo 88 opened in Brisbane, Australia.
(http://expomuseum.com/1988/)
1988 Apr 30, Gen. Manuel Noriega,
waving a machete, vowed at a rally to keep fighting U.S. efforts to
oust him as Panama's military ruler.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1989 Apr 30, President Bush
attended a parade in New York City celebrating the bicentennial of the
American presidency.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1989 Apr 30, Sergio Leone (60),
Italian director (Good, Bad & Ugly), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0001466/)
1990 Apr 30, Hostage Frank Reed
was released by his captives in Lebanon, the second American freed in
eight days.
(AP, 4/30/00)
1991 Apr 30, Former Massachusetts
Senator Paul Tsongas announced his bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 4/30/01)
1991 Apr 29-1991 Apr 31, A cyclone
in Bangladesh killed an estimated 131,000 people. 9 million were left
homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and water borne
disease.
(http://tinyurl.com/duk2u)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1992 Apr 30, As rioting in Los
Angeles entered its second day, President Bush condemned the violence
and said the Justice Department would intensify its investigation of
police conduct in the beating of Rodney King.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1993 Apr 30, Top-ranked women's
tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a match in
Hamburg, Germany, by a man who called himself a fan of second-ranked
German player Steffi Graf. Convicted of causing grievous bodily harm,
he received a suspended sentence.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1994 Apr 30, The Eurovision Song
Contest was held in Dublin’s Point Theater. The first performance of
Riverdance was held there which featured a modern form of Irish
stepdancing.
(WSJ, 3/12/96, p. A-16)
1994 Apr 30, The counting of
ballots began in South Africa's first all-race elections.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1994 Apr 30, Some 100,000 men,
women and children fleeing ethnic slaughter in Rwanda crossed into
neighboring Tanzania. In Rwanda Tutsis were singled out, abducted and
massacred at a convent close to an army camp. In 2010 in Tanzania the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down a life sentence
to Ildephonse Hategekimana, a lieutenant from the former Rwandan army,
for ordering the massacre. He was found guilty of genocide, murder and
rape.
(AP, 4/30/99)(AFP, 12/6/10)
1995 Apr 30, President Clinton
announced he would end U.S. trade and investment with Iran, denouncing
the Tehran government as "inspiration and paymaster to terrorists."
(AP, 4/30/00)
1995 Apr 30, Federated merged the
A&S (Abraham & Straus) stores into Macy's, Bloomingdale's and
Stern's.
(http://tenant-search.net/dealmakers/1995%20Issues/DM042195.asp)
1995 Apr 30, More than 10,000
soldiers, students and children in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,
celebrated the 20th anniversary of the end of the war.
(AP, 4/30/00)
1996 Apr 30, In Fort Myers,
Florida, members of a teen militia called the Lords of Chaos slew
high-school band director Mark Schwebes. They had begun a crime spree
on Apr 13 with acts of arson and vandalism. Arrested were Kevin
Foster,18, Derek Shields, 18, Peter Magnotti, 17, Christopher Black,
18, Christopher Burnett, 17, and Thomas Tarrone, 16.
1996 Apr 30, President Clinton and
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres signed an accord in Washington
extending U.S. help to Israel in countering terrorism.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1997 Apr 30, ABC aired the "coming
out" of the title character in the sitcom "Ellen," played by Ellen
DeGeneres.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, President Clinton
reopened the newly renovated Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library
of Congress in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, The Senate approved
the nomination of Alexis Herman to be labor secretary.
(AP, 4/30/98)
1997 Apr 30, Sarah Patterson (11)
was sexually assaulted and murdered with her throat slit near Fort
Worth, Texas. Her brother was beaten, but survived and later testified
against Bobby Wayne Woods. Woods (44) was executed on Dec 3, 2009.
(SFC, 12/4/09,
p.A18)(www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/08/jan08.htm)
1997 Apr 30, A huge blast killed
22 Albanians in the village of Selize. They were stripping the bronze
casings of mortar shells stored in a cave.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A13)
1998 Apr 30, President Clinton
questioned the conduct of Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr and
dismissed Republican challenges to his own character as "high-level
static" during a news conference.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 Apr 30, The US Senate
approved the expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, In Florida lawmakers
passed a bill that required girls under 18 to notify at least one
parent prior to an abortion.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, United and Delta
airlines formed an alliance that would control one-third of all U.S.
passenger seats.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 Apr 30, A study reported in
the New England Journal of medicine that RU-486, an abortion pill, was
92% effective in causing abortions with 15 days without surgery.
(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, A report in Nature
traced mammals back to around 100 million years before the present
using a “molecular clock.”
(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 30, The 85,000 ton Disney
cruise ship Disney Magic was scheduled to debut.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.T5)
1998 Apr 30, In California Daniel
V. Jones (40) blew up his truck and fatally shot himself on a connector
bridge between the harbor and Century Freeways freeway with live TV
coverage. He had HIV and displayed an anti-HMO banner before killing
himself.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A3)(SFC, 5/2/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 30, In Indiana Antoine
Whitehead (19) robbed the KeyBank in Carmel and killed Penny Schmitt
(32) and shot 3 co-workers. He had just been refused a loan and killed
himself following an intensive manhunt.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A10)
1998 Apr 30, In Northern Ireland
the IRA refused to disarm as part of the peace accord, which demanded
the decommission of weaponry to begin in June and finish in 2 years.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D2)
1999 Apr 30, The US State Dept.
annual report on terrorism listed Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea,
Sudan and Syria as sponsoring terrorism groups.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A8)
1999 Apr 30, The Florida
Legislature gave final approval to a school voucher program that would
entitle students in the worst public schools to receive $3-25,000 a
year to help pay for private or parochial school tuition. In 2002 a
judge struck down the school-voucher law.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A4)(WSJ, 8/6/02, p.A1)
1999 Apr 30, Cambodia was admitted
as the 10th member of the Association of Asian Nations (ASEAN).
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr 30, In Guatemala some 600
peasants stormed a police station in Huehuetenango and freed 12 former
paramilitary members who had just been sentenced to 25 years in prison
for killing peasants in Colotenango in 1993.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr 30, In London a bomb
exploded at the Admiral Duncan pub, a gay bar in Soho. 2-3 people were
killed and over 70 wounded. David Copeland (24) was convicted for the
bombing in 2000.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A1)(AP, 4/30/00)(SFC, 7/1/00, p.A14)
1999 Apr 30, Ecuador reached an
agreement with the IMF for a $900 million loan package.
(WSJ, 5/3/99, p.A1,16)
1999 Apr 30, NATO undertook over
600 sorties and strikes in Montenegro and Kosovo reportedly killed 13
people.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 30, In Belgrade, Serbia,
a 5.5 earthquake struck. Later in the day Jesse Jackson met with the 3
captured Americans and planned to meet with Pres. Milosevic for their
release. In an interview Pres. Milosevic pronounced that his countrymen
were willing to died to defend their rights.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A1,6)(AP, 4/30/00)
1999 Apr 30, Serbian forces began
a forced evacuation of Prizren and 10,000 people crossed the border to
Albania.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A6)
2000 Apr 30, The Clinton
administration defended their decision to classify AIDS as a threat to
national security as a means to garner attention and funding to fight
the disease worldwide.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A7)
2000 Apr 30, The 4th annual gay
rights rally, billed as the Millennium March, was held in Washington
DC. The crowd in the national Mall was estimated from 200-750 thousand.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.A13)(AP, 4/30/01)
2000 Apr 30, It was reported by
the Royal Swedish Academy that the Earth is currently hotter than at
any time in recorded human history.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.A17)
2000 Apr 30, In Guatemala
villagers in Todos Santos Cuchuman stoned to death a Japanese tourist,
Tetsuo Yamahiro (40), and his tour’s bus driver, Edgar Castellanos
(35), in the belief that they had come to steal children. The driver
was cremated with gasoline.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A14)
2000 Apr 30, In Sri Lanka rebels
captured a key army base at Pallai.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A13)
2001 Apr 30, US Immigration
offices were converged on by illegal immigrants on the last day for
applying for residency status without leaving the country.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A3)
2001 Apr 30, The SF Board of
Supervisors passed a measure 9-2 to allow city employees medical
benefits for a sex change.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 30, Chandra Levy (24), an
intern from Modesto, Ca., was last seen at a health club near her
apartment in Washington, DC. On July 5 the aunt of Chandra Levy
reported that her niece told her of a relationship with US Rep. Gary
Condit before she disappeared. Levy’s remains were found May 22, 2002,
in Rock Creek Park, Washington DC. In 2009 Ingmar Guandique (27), a
Salvadoran immigrant already serving a 10-year sentence for attacking 2
women in the same park, was charged in her murder. In 2010 Scott Higham
and Sari Horwitz authored “Finding Chandra: The True Washington Murder
Mystery.” In Nov 22, 2010, a jury found Guandique guilty of 2 counts of
1st degree murder. On Feb 11, 2011, Guandique was sentenced to 60 years
in prison.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.A3)(SFC, 7/6/01, p.A1)(AP,
4/30/02)(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/09, p.A4)(SSFC, 5/9/10,
p.F1)(SFC, 11/23/10, p.A12)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A6)
2001 Apr 30, The Soyuz-32,
carrying California businessman, multimillionaire Dennis Tito and 2
Russian astronauts, Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin, docked with the
Int’l. Space Station. The Soyuz landed in the Kazak steppe on May 6.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.A15)(AP, 4/30/02)
2001 Apr 30, In Colombia Carlos
Alberto Trespalacios (33), information director for the Medellin sports
institute, was slain in the El Poblado district.
(SFC, 5/2/01, p.A9)
2001 Apr 30, It was reported that
Germany’s Chancellor Schroeder had proposed a draft for turning the EU
Executive Commission into a European government and giving the EU
Parliament full power over the 15-nation budget.
(SFC, 4/30/01, p.A8)
2001 Apr 30, In Indonesia 363 of
500 legislators censured Pres. Wahid for a 2nd time this year.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A8)
2001 Apr 30, In Mexico Zapatista
rebels broke off contact with the government due to the watered down
Indian rights legislation.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A9)
2001 Apr 30, Five Palestinians
were killed in bomb blasts in Gaza and the West Bank.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A10)
2001 Apr 30, In the Philippines
the army went on alert after Cardinal Sin urged people into the streets
to defend democracy and Pres. Arroyo from defenders of former Pres.
Estrada. Some 20,000 followers of Estrada tried to storm the
presidential palace and at least 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 4/30/01, p.A8)(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/1/01,
p.A1)
2001 Apr 30, In Zambia the ruling
party nominated Pres. Chiluba for re-election following a vote to amend
the constitution.
(WSJ, 5/1/01, p.A1)
2002 Apr 30, Benevolence
International Foundation, an Islamic charity based in suburban Chicago,
and its director were charged with perjury and accused by the FBI of
supporting terrorists; the charity maintains its innocence. Enaam
Arnaout later pleaded guilty to racketeering, admitting he had
defrauded donors by diverting some of the money to Islamic military
groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2002 Apr 30, Striking new images
from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope were unveiled.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 30, A US grand jury
indicted Colombia’s rebel FARC army and 6 of its members on charges of
murdering 3 Americans.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 30, Israel blocked the UN
proposed fact-finding mission to Jenin. Israeli forces pulled out of
Hebron and 26 Palestinians emerged from the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 30, North Korea accepted
a US invitation on talks to curb its missile program and military
exports.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 30, In Pakistan Pres.
Musharraf won a resounding mandate for 5 more years in office, but the
turnout was estimated at only 25-30%. Published figures showed 97.7%
support and over 50% turnout and much voter fraud was alleged.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A10)(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 30, Russia’s military
command said the Chechen commander Shamil Basayev had been killed.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 30, In Somalia a fire
destroyed half of the Bakara market in Mogadishu. At least 7 people
were killed in attempts to stop looters.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A13)
2003 Apr 30, Donald Rumsfeld
visited Iraq and hailed its liberation. US soldiers fired on
anti-American protesters in the city of Fallujah; the mayor said two
people were killed and 14 wounded.
(AP, 4/30/03)(SFC, 5/1/03, A1)
2003 Apr 30, The U.S. Navy
withdrew from its disputed Vieques bombing range in Puerto Rico,
prompting celebrations by islanders.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2003 Apr 30, Eric Gupton (b.1960),
founding member of the Black theater troupe Pomo Afro Homos, died in SF
of complications from AIDS. The group’s breakthrough first show was
titled “Fierce Love: Stories From black Gay Life” (1990).
(SFC, 2/18/08, p.E1)
2003 Apr 30, Burundi's Tutsi
minority handed over the presidency to Domitien Ndayizeye of the Hutu
majority as part of the peace process aimed at ending 9 1/2 years of
civil war.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 Apr 30, In Israel some
700,000 workers closed down public services in an open-ended strike to
protest proposed spending cuts and mass firings.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A9)
2003 Apr 30, US Ambassador Dan
Kurtzer met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to present him
with an internationally backed Mideast peace plan, that envisioned
Palestinian statehood within three years. Mediators presented Israeli
and Palestinian leaders with a new Middle East "road map," a
U.S.-backed blueprint for ending 31 months of violence and establishing
a Palestinian state.
(AP, 4/30/03)(AP, 4/30/04)
2003 Apr 30, Mahmoud Abbas took
office as Palestinian prime minister.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2003 Apr 30, Libyan Foreign
Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said his government accepted
responsibility for the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A7)
2003 Apr 30, North Korea was
reported to be a country with 1.17 million military personnel, the
world's 5th largest. Its air force had more than 1,700 aircraft and the
navy more than 800 ships. In March Gen. Leon J. LaPorte said "North
Korea maintains a substantial chemical weapons stockpile and a
production capability that threatens both our military forces and
civilian population centers in South Korea and Japan." In addition, he
said, North Korea has the capability "to develop, produce and
potentially weaponize biological warfare agents."
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 Apr 30, South and North Korea
agreed in Cabinet-level talks to peacefully resolve the nuclear crisis
on the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2004 Apr 30, On ABC's "Nightline,"
Ted Koppel read aloud the names of 721 U.S. servicemen and women killed
in the Iraq war. The Sinclair Broadcast Group refused to air the
program on seven ABC stations.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2004 Apr 30, Graphic photographs
were shown on TV screens across the Middle East of naked Iraqi
prisoners being humiliated by smiling U.S. military police. Pres. Bush
condemned the mistreatment of prisoners, saying it "does not reflect
the nature of the American people."
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, Former NBA star
Jayson Williams was acquitted of manslaughter in the shotgun slaying of
a limousine driver at his mansion, but found guilty of trying to cover
up the shooting.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, Michael Jackson
pleaded not guilty in Santa Maria, Calif., to a grand jury indictment
that expanded the child molestation case against him.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2004 Apr 30, In the SF Bay Area
the National Labor Relations Board ruled that cab drivers for an East
Bay syndicate to taxi companies are employees, not independent
contractors, and therefore entitled to unionize. The companies refused
to negotiate.
(SFC, 7/28/04, p.B5)
2004 Apr 30, Bosnian Serb
authorities offered details of six previously undisclosed mass graves
in the town of Srebrenica.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, In Indonesia hundreds
of protesters clashed with police as officers re-arrested Abu
Bakar Bashir (66), a Muslim cleric accused of heading an
al-Qaeda-linked terror network. Muslims and Christians with homemade
bombs and military-issue weapons clashed in the eastern city of Ambon,
leaving 15 wounded and scores of houses in flames.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, Iraqi troops led by
Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh (49), one of Saddam Hussein's generals,
replaced U.S. Marines and raised the Iraqi flag at the entrance to
Fallujah under a plan to end the month long siege of the city. A
suicide car bomb on the outskirts killed two Americans and wounded six.
Saleh was replaced May 3 by Muhammad Latif, a former Iraqi intelligence
officer.
(AP, 4/30/04)(SFC, 5/4/04, p.A11)
2004 Apr 30, U.S. troops and
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to a three-day truce in
negotiations to end the standoff at Najaf.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, The Associated Press
found that around 1,361 Iraqis were killed from April 1 to April 30, 10
times the figure of at least 136 U.S. troops who died during the same
period.
(AP, 4/30/04)
2004 Apr 30, A bus skidded off a
mountain highway in central Nepal, killing at least 29 people.
(AP, 5/1/04)
2004 Apr 30, In southern Vietnam a
tourist boat carrying about 130 passengers sank off the coast.
Authorities recovered 22 bodies, including one 8-year-old boy.
(AP, 5/1/04)
2005 Apr 30, James Toney
outpointed John Ruiz to win the WBA heavyweight title in NY.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2005 Apr 30, Jennifer Wilbanks
(32) of Duluth, Georgia, turned up in Albuquerque, NM, after being
missing for 4 days. She was scheduled to be married Apr 30, and got
“cold feet.”
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 30, “With all of its
liabilities in dollars and most of its assets in foreign currencies,
America gets a wealth boost when the dollar drops.” The Bank of Japan
and other central banks have amassed $2 trillion in foreign-exchange
reserves, perhaps 70% in dollars. Should the dollar fall, these central
banks will be exposed to heavy capital losses.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.70,74)
2005 Apr 30, In Egypt a bomb blast
and tour bus shooting took place near Cairo tourist sites. A man
identified as a suspect in an April 7 bombing blew himself up as he
leapt off a bridge during a police chase. Less than two hours later 2
veiled women opened fire on a tour bus in a historic part of Cairo and
one of them was killed in a gunbattle with security guards.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 30, Insurgents launched
fresh attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq, killing at least 10 Iraqis
and wounding more than 30.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Nepal's King
Gyanendra lifted a state of emergency he imposed after seizing power in
February.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Palestinian security
officials said Israeli special forces entered Tulkarem before dawn and
arrested 18-year-old Mohammed Shalhoub. Israeli military officials said
Shalhoub was an Islamic Jihad militant preparing an imminent suicide
attack against Israelis and had already filmed the video testament
often left by suicide bombers.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 30, Students and
administrators at the main campus of Puerto Rico's largest university
agreed to end a 3-week-old strike called to protest a 33 percent
tuition increase.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Sudanese leaders
began work on drafting an interim constitution expected to seal a peace
deal with the south, but major opposition groups boycotted the opening
session.
(AFP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, In western Turkey a
police officer was killed and four others were injured when a parcel
bomb exploded in the hands of a bomb disposal expert in a seaside
resort town.
(AP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr 30, Vietnam marked the
30th anniversary of the war's end.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Some 100,000 rallied
in Washington DC, SF and other US cities to urge the Bush
administration to take decisive action to stop the genocide in Darfur.
(SFC, 5/1/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, It was reported that
on average a family of four should expect to pay $261 a day for food
and lodging when traveling in the US this summer.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.G2)
2006 Apr 30, In San Francisco
Daniel Elizalde (17) shot and killed Karl Bartolome (19) as Bartolome
walked with his girlfriend and nephew at Lisbon and Persia streets in
the Excelsior district. Elizalde later pleaded guilty to 2nd degree
murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life.
(SFC, 12/25/09, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/ydhpjr4)
2006 Apr 30, In Afghanistan Edward
Caraballo (44), an American jailed for two years in Kabul on charges of
torturing alleged terrorists in a makeshift jail, was freed two months
early after a government decree. Police found an Indian hostage's
beheaded body in southern Afghanistan. Taliban militants said they shot
the hostage dead as he tried to escape.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Australia rescuers
made voice contact with two miners trapped a half mile beneath the
earth for nearly a week. Todd Russell (34) and Brant Webb (37) were
trapped April 25 when a small earthquake caused a rock collapse at the
Beaconsfield Gold Mine. One of their co-workers was killed in the quake.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, A fisherman off
Barbados found a boat with the bodies of 11 men from Senegal. The boat
had left Senegal Christmas eve with 52 migrant people and was
apparently bound for the Canary Islands.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, British environment
ministry officials said work has begun to cull chickens at two more
poultry farms in eastern England after the suspected discovery there of
the H7 strain of bird flu.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, China successfully
tested a locally made magnetic levitation train, the first time the
country has achieved the feat without using foreign technology. The
20-ton test maglev train ran steadily on a 1,400-foot experimental line
in the provincial capital of Chengdu, the capital of southwestern
Sichuan province.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Congo's electoral
commission said that national elections, the first in 40 years for the
violence-plagued central African nation, will take place July 30, about
a month later than planned.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Egypt's parliament
agreed to a two-year extension of emergency law requested by the
government while it prepares replacement anti-terrorism laws. Egyptian
security forces hunting bombers behind attacks last week in the Sinai
peninsula fought gunbattles with suspects and killed 3 of them.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AFP, 5/2/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Ethiopia visiting
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he backed plans for
an expanded United Nations Security Council, adding that he would
present his country's position at the African Union (AU) headquarters
in Addis Ababa.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Iraq the office of
President Jalal Talabani said he had met with representatives of seven
armed groups and was optimistic they may agree to lay down their
weapons. Bombs and drive-by shootings killed 12 people. The bodies of 7
Iraqi men, who apparently were kidnapped and tortured, were found in
three areas of the capital. Three security contractors were killed and
two others injured in a roadside bomb attack 30 miles south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/30/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Israel's Cabinet
voted to modify the route of its West Bank separation barrier to put
thousands of Palestinians on the "Palestinian" side of the enclosure.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Suspected Islamic
militants raided a village in Indian-controlled Kashmir and killed 22
Hindus, lining them outside their homes and shooting them
execution-style. Police found the bodies of 4 of 13 Hindu cattle
grazers who were abducted over the weekend by suspected Islamic
militants. 9 more bodies were found the next day.
(AFP, 5/1/06)(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 Apr 30, Laotians voted for a
new parliament in a largely symbolic exercise since all the candidates
belonged to the communist party. But in an effort to bring in fresh
faces, only about a quarter were incumbents.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Nepal's Parliament
called for a cease-fire with Maoist insurgents and elections for an
assembly to rewrite the constitution, as the new PM Girija Prasad
Koirala (84) urged the rebels to sit down for talks.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Pakistan an army
spokesman said Mohammed Farooq, a senior Pakistani scientist suspected
of helping leak nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya, and North
Korea, has been released after two years in detention.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Saudi King Abdullah
issued a decree lowering domestic gasoline prices by about 25%. That
would lower the cost to about 16 cents per liter.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Serbia braced for
suspension of EU aid and trade talks as deadline expired for the arrest
of war-crimes fugitive Ratco Mladic.
(WSJ, 5/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 30, In eastern Sri Lanka
at least 18 rebels were killed and many wounded when Tamil Tiger
guerrillas launched a major attack against a breakaway faction.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, The Sudanese
government said it was ready to sign a draft peace deal with rebels
from its Darfur region, but the rebels said they still had reservations
about the agreement.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2007 Apr 30, The US announced a
major expansion of offshore oil and gas development, with proposed
lease sales covering 48 million new acres.
(WSJ, 5/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 30, US and Mexican law
enforcement officials said Mexican druglords are taking over the
business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as
human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine
shipments across the same border.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Delta Air Lines
emerged from bankruptcy after 19 months in Chapter 11.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.84)
2007 Apr 30, Tom Poston (b.1921),
American TV and film actor, died in Los Angeles.
(AP,
4/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Poston)
2007 Apr 30, The presidents of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, a meeting arranged by Turkish leaders, agreed
to share intelligence on extremist groups to bolster efforts to deny
sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists in both countries.
NATO-led troops killed 75 suspected insurgents on the first day of an
operation against Taliban militants in a valley in southern Helmand
province. Hundreds of people demonstrated in the Shindand district of
the western province of Herat, after coalition and Afghan operations
there on April 27 and 29, insisting that civilians were among the
victims. Police the next day said at least 30 civilians, including
women and children, were among those killed in Shindand's fighting. The
US military reported killing 136 rebels over 3 days of fighting in
western Afghanistan. One US soldier died in the clashes.
(AP, 4/30/07)(AP, 5/1/07)(AFP, 5/1/07)(WSJ, 5/1/07,
p.A1)
2007 Apr 30, Miles Hilton-Barber
(58), A blind British adventurer, touched down in Sydney Monday to end
an epic 13,500-mile flight by microlight aircraft from London. His
54-day journey was performed under the supervision of sighted co-pilot
Richard Meredith-Hardy.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, A British judge
sentenced five men to life in prison for plotting to bomb several
targets in London including a popular nightclub, power plants and
shopping mall in a trial that exposed links between the men and at
least two of the suicide bombers who attacked the capital two years
ago. Mohammed Junaid Babar's testimony in the yearlong trial revealed
how disaffected Britons were trained for terrorism in Pakistan, where
many have family ties. The former terrorist turned informant was
arrested in New York in 2004, and has since given evidence to
prosecutors in Britain, the US and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/30/07)(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, Britain's first
convicted war criminal was sentenced to a year in prison and dismissed
from the army in connection with the death of an Iraqi hotel worker.
Corp. Donald Payne had pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi
civilians in southern Basra in 2003.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In China a manager of
a feed company and one of the chemical's producers said that the mildly
toxic chemical melamine is commonly added to animal feed in China. The
process fraudulently boosts the feed's sales value but risks
introducing the chemical into meat eaten by humans.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Egyptian authorities
released two Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers but ordered 12 other members
of the country's most powerful opposition group detained.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, A suicide car bomber
apparently targeting an Interior Ministry convoy struck an Iraqi
checkpoint near a busy square in the predominantly Sunni Arab area of
Harthiyah in western Baghdad, killing 4 people and wounding 10. Some 50
gunmen attacked a police station in a mainly Sunni Arab area in the
northern city of Mosul, prompting clashes as police chased the
attackers through the streets. 4 gunmen were killed and two were
detained, while one policeman was wounded. A parked car bomb struck a
police patrol in the same area, killing one policeman and wounding two.
A suicide bomber struck a crowd of funeral mourners north of Baghdad
killing over 30 people. Nationwide at least 102 people were killed.
(AP, 4/30/07)(SFC, 5/1/07, p.A12)
2007 Apr 30, An Israeli government
commission aimed harsh criticism at PM Ehud Olmert and other officials
for their handling of last summer's war in Lebanon.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Hundreds of
protesters briefly pushed into the Palestinian education ministry as
Fatah-allied teachers in the West Bank went on strike to press for the
payment of overdue salaries. Angry Palestinian demonstrators stormed
the Egyptian embassy in Gaza City, demanding that Egypt release five
Palestinians held in Cairo jails.
(AP, 5/1/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In the northern
Philippines Mayor Julian Resuello of San Carlos died 2 days after he
was shot to death.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The South African
government and AIDS campaigners launched a joint national body to
oversee a program aimed at halving the country's rate of new infections.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Sudanese armed
forces vowed to "crush" a coalition of rebel groups in Darfur for
killing an officer whose helicopter had landed in north Darfur after a
technical failure.
(Reuters, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In southern Thailand
suspected Islamic insurgents exploded a bomb at a busy night market and
wounded 20 people.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, In southern Tunisia a
stampede at an open-air concert by stars of the Arab version of
"American Idol" killed seven young people and injured 32.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Turkish stock
market plunged, reacting sharply to political tensions as the
Islamic-rooted government comes under strong pressure from secular
circles to call parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, President Hugo Chavez
announced he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation
has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2008 Apr 30, The US Federal
Reserve cut interest rates for a 7th time in 8 months, but signaled
that the rate-cutting may be nearing an end. The federal funds rate was
lowered to 2% from 2.25%.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 30, Scientists at
Hewlett-Packard said they have discovered a fourth basic type of
electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to boot
up. The three fundamental elements of a passive circuit included
resistors, capacitors and inductors. In 1971 Leon Chua of the
University of California at Berkeley, theorized there should be a
fourth called a memory resistor, or memristor, which remembers the
direction and the amount of charge that flows through it.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)(SFC, 5/1/08, p.C1)
2008 Apr 30, Afghan security
forces raided a Kabul hide-out where militants with suspected links to
the attack on President Hamid Karzai were holed up. Seven people died
in the pre-dawn raid, including a child.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Attorney General
Robert McClelland said Australian gay and lesbian couples will have the
same rights as heterosexuals under new laws but marriage will remain
off limits.
(AFP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Western Australia
state police raided the Perth offices of the Sunday Times, which is
published by Australia's largest newspaper publisher, Rupert Murdoch's
News Limited. Staff said police were searching for the source of a leak
that led to a story alleging the state government planned to use 16
million dollars (14.9 million US) in taxpayer funds on an advertising
campaign to help its re-election.
(AFP, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, Canada pledged an
extra C$50 million ($49.5 million) for international food aid and said
it would also allow its money to be used to buy food abroad and not tie
it to purchases of Canadian produce.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Syncrude Canada's
operations were under investigation by environmental regulators after
as many as 500 birds landed in the waste water in the oil sands region
of northern Alberta.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, The Olympic torch
returned to Chinese soil after a turbulent 20-nation tour, landing in
the bustling financial capital of Hong Kong where officials deported at
least seven activists before the flame's arrival.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, In Egypt state news
agency MENA said Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo for talks with
Egyptian security officials have agreed to an Egyptian proposal for a
truce with Israel starting in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Baghdad sent a
delegation to Tehran with "evidence, confessions and pictures"
indicating that Iran is supplying weapons and training fighters who are
locked in a violent standoff with US and Iraqi troops. PM al-Maliki
accused the Mahdi Army of using civilians as human shields, and vowed
to continue the crackdown against militias. 2 people were killed and 16
wounded overnight in Sadr City. Clashes in Baghdad killed at least 25
people. 3 US soldiers were killed in Baghdad. A US soldier was killed
by an explosion in Ninevah province.
(AP, 4/30/08)(AP, 5/1/08)(SFC, 5/1/08, p.A2)
2008 Apr 30, Ethiopian troops
allied to Somalia's shaky government opened fire on civilians in a
street in southwestern Somalia, killing 13 after an explosion there
killed two soldiers.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, An official said
Nepal will give the families of the 13,000 people killed in the
country's decade-long civil war more than 1,500 dollars each in
compensation.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, In Niger a summit of
nine west African states convened in Niamey to consider a proposed
20-year, 5.5 billion euro (8.6 billion dollar) program to rescue the
Niger River from extinction and guarantee the future of 110 million
people.
(AFP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, In the southern
Philippines troops captured a camp that housed a bomb-making factory of
al-Qaida-linked militants after heavy fighting.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, It was reported that
the value of spinner dolphin teeth in the Solomon Islands has
appreciated 400% in the last year from about .065 US cents to 26 US
cents. Dolphin teeth have been used there for centuries as currency.
(WSJ, 4/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
southern Sudan and called for demarcation of the contested oil-rich
border region between the north and south.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, President Hugo Chavez
ordered the expropriation of Sidor, Venezuela's largest steel maker,
after attempts by the government to acquire a majority stake in the
company failed. Chavez said Venezuela will turn Siderurgica del
Orinoco, which was controlled by Luxembourg-based Ternium SA., into "a
socialist company."
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 Apr 30, Zimbabwe said it has
decided to float its local currency on foreign exchange markets in an
attempt to eliminate speculation on the black market. Farmers tore up
their tobacco crop in protest on the auction floors of Harare as state
price controls to combat hyperinflation threatened to wipe out their
profits. An unidentified senior official with Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF
party said results from the March 29 election gave opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai 47% of the votes while Mugabe trailed with 43%.
(AP, 4/30/08)(AP, 5/1/08)
2009 Apr 30, Obama administration
officials said Chrysler will file for bankruptcy protection after
overnight talks broke down with a small group of the company's
creditors.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chrysler filed for
bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small
group of the company's creditors. Canada's government said it will take
an ownership stake in Chrysler in exchange for more than $2 billion in
loans, under a sweeping North American rescue plan. Ottawa and
Washington demanded the Detroit company partner with Fiat as a
condition for funding.
(AP, 4/30/09)(Reuters, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Illinois Ali
al-Marri (43) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide
material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. A
second charge of providing material support or resources to a foreign
terrorist organization was dropped. His case had sparked a legal debate
over whether the government can hold terrorism suspects indefinitely.
The Qatar native faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at
his July 30 sentencing. On Oct 29 a federal judge sentenced Ali Saleh
Kahlah al-Marri to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 10/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, The San Francisco
Municipal Railway announced plans to raise adult bus and streetcar
fares, effective July 1, by 50 cents to $2.00, the largest one-time
raise in nearly a century. Sweeping service cuts were also approved.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 30, In Texas Derrick
Lamone Johnson was executed for the 1999 rape and murder of LaTausha
Curry (25) abducted while she trying to make a call at a pay phone. He
was the 14th Texas prisoner executed this year.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, In Wisconsin Shane
Kettner (36) was arrested in Nelsonville for killing his estranged
girlfriend and 2 of their children.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Apr 30, In Azerbaijan
Georgian citizen Farda Gadyrov (20) opened fire at the prestigious oil
industry academy in Baku, killing 12 people and wounding 13 before
turning the gun on himself.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Belgium stripped the
credentials of 2 high-ranking members of Russia’s permanent mission to
NATO and expelled them on accusations of espionage.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Brazil's Supreme
Court struck down a 1967 press censorship law enacted during the
military dictatorship. In a 7-4 vote the court ruled the law
unconstitutionally violated freedom of expression.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, British forces
formally ended combat operations in Iraq, one month ahead of schedule.
A solemn ceremony remembered 179 dead comrades from six years of
warfare.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In Beijing Japan’s PM
Taro Aso called for Tokyo and Beijing to unite in facing the world's
environmental and economic challenges, while playing down concerns over
China's military power.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chinese state media
reported that China has reopened its land border to tourists traveling
to North Korea after a three-year break, with a group of 71 tourists
visiting the isolated country earlier this week on a one day tour of
Sinuiju.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In India millions
cast their votes in the third wave of month-long elections, with
security tight as the staggered polls took in the Kashmir Valley and
the financial capital Mumbai.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The Iraqi government
decided to kill three wild boars at the Baghdad Zoo amid worldwide
fears of swine flu. No date was set for their killing. Two US Marines
and a sailor were killed during combat operations in Anbar province.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican health
authorities said they confirmed 300 swine flu cases and 12 deaths due
to the virus among a total of 679 people tested so far.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican authorities
detained 12 federal police investigators accused of leaking information
to hit men who ambushed and killed 8 officers on April 18 in a failed
attempt to free a high level drug cartel member.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 30, In the Netherlands 5
people died when a car slammed into a crowd at the Queen's Day festival
attended by members of the royal family in the western city of
Apeldoorn. A policeman as well as the assailant died the next day from
their injuries. The suspect was identified by Dutch media as Karst
Tates (38). Neighbors said Tates recently was fired from his job as a
security guard and was to be evicted from his home in the small eastern
town of Huissen because he could no longer afford the rent. An injured
woman died a week later bringing the total to 7 victims.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Pakistan troops
sent to repel a Taliban advance toward the Pakistani capital killed 14
suspected militants. Troops ousted militants from the Ambela Pass
leading over the mountains into Buner and were inching toward the
north. Militants, who have kidnapped dozens of lightly armed police and
paramilitary troops, had burned a police station farther north and
sealed off the town of Sultanwas.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Peru Ashaninka and
Yines Indians blocked an airport in the central jungle town of Atalaya
as well as two stations on a northern oil pipeline to protest laws that
they say threaten their ancestral land and resources. Some 15,000
Indians have been protesting since April 9 and planned to start taking
over oil and gas rigs. They said laws passed in December opened the
door to privatization of water resources and jungle land which they
used.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Russia signed a deal
with Georgia's two breakaway regions giving Moscow the power to guard
the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a move sharply criticized in
Tbilisi.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, In Saudi Arabia a
lawyer said an 8-year-old girl has divorced her middle-aged husband
after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for
about $13,000. Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at home
and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a close
ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child marriage a
"clear and unacceptable" violation of human rights.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Sri Lanka's president
rejected international appeals for a cease-fire in his nation's bloody
civil war, as the Tamil Tiger rebels vowed never to surrender to the
advancing government forces.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Turkey's military
said its warplanes struck Kurdish rebel targets overnight in northern
Iraq.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council extended for another year the mandate of UN peacekeepers in
southern Sudan who monitor compliance with a peace deal that ended
Sudan's two-decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 30, Police in the US
Virgin Islands canceled the popular J'ouvert carnival after four people
were wounded in a shooting and two stabbings.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2010 Apr 30, Oil from a leaking
well in the Gulf of Mexico began washing ashore in the southern US
state of Louisiana, threatening an ecological disaster.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In NYC an indictment
was unsealed against Wesam El-Hanafi and Sabirhan Hasanoff for scheming
to provide computer systems expertise and other goods and services to
Al-Qaida.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 30, In Arkansas several
tornadoes ripped through the state, killing a woman and injuring two
dozen others. Leveled homes, overturned vehicles and uprooted trees
were scattered across central Arkansas.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, Peter Lopez (60), a
successful entertainment attorney who was married to actress Catherine
Bach, was found dead at his home in the Encino Hills, Ca., in an
apparent suicide.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Mar 30, Jadin Wong (b.1913),
Chinese-American dancer and actress, died. She appeared in dozens of
films including “Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation” (1939).
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.C5)
2010 Apr 30, In southern
Afghanistan foreign troops killed two women and a girl as they traveled
by car.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Albania tens of
thousands of people thronged the main square of Tirana and demanded a
partial recount of the election that the opposition claims involved
vote-rigging.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 30, In Argentina over
2,000 adolescents in schools across the province of Mendoza skipped
classes and met in a plaza in a mass truancy organized on Facebook. A
judge in Mendoza soon ordered Facebook to shut groups created by minors
to organize the truancy.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 30, Shanghai kicked off
the six-month World Expo with a star-studded gala ceremony set to end
in a lavish blaze of fireworks and light along the city's river-front.
The World Expo officially opened on May 1. Closing date was set for Oct
31.
(AFP, 4/30/10)(AP, 5/1/10)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.42)
2010 Apr 30, A Chinese farmer
attacked kindergarten students with a hammer, injuring five, before
burning himself to death in China's third such assault in as many days
and prompting the government to demand stricter school security
nationwide.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, The EU's foreign
affairs chief Catherine Ashton said that China is willing to discuss
sanctions on Iran as long as they are carefully targeted and bolster
efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Ireland mourned the
shock loss of one of the nation's best-known broadcasters, Gerry Ryan
(53), who was found dead in his Dublin apartment after failing to
broadcast his morning radio show, an Irish institution.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Jordanian doctor
Humam Khalili Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA employees in a
suicide attack in Afghanistan late last year, called on Muslims to wage
jihad and become martyrs in a posthumous message posted on extremist
websites.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Kurdish rebels killed
four Turkish soldiers and wounded seven others in eastern Turkey in the
largest attack on troops in several months.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, Hezbollah's leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in published remarks that Hezbollah can
strike infrastructure deep inside Israel if a new war breaks out, but
refused to confirm whether or not the Lebanon-based militants have
long-range Scud missiles.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Mexican authorities
rescued two journalists who had been stranded for nearly three days
among feuding militants after a caravan of rights activists was caught
in a deadly ambush in southern Oaxaca state.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, A Nigerian court
sentenced six Ghanaians and a Nigerian to 8 years in prison each after
they were found guilty of stealing 4,000 tons of oil products. Rebels
in the restive Niger Delta claimed to have blown up a Shell pipeline in
the creeks of the southern oil producing region and threatened further
attacks.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Pakistan Khalid
Khawaja, a former intelligence officer, was found shot dead in a
northwest tribal region. Khawaja went missing in late March with
another ex-intelligence official, Sultan Amir Tarar, and journalist
Asad Qureshi. There was no word on the fate of the two others.
Pakistani troops pressing an anti-Taliban offensive into a second month
in a lawless tribal district near the Afghan border killed at least
eight militants. Taliban militants blew up a state-run girls' school in
Sadiqabad village in Bajaur, another of Pakistan's seven tribal
districts where militants have destroyed 89 schools.
(AP, 4/30/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Apr 30, Panama police found
an arsenal of assault rifles, grenades and almost a half million rounds
of ammunition at the home of Professor Vinicio Jimenez, a
Guatemalan-born sociology professor. Their raid netted 47 assault
rifles, 24 machine pistols, 487,900 rounds of ammunition and almost
4,000 grenades and grenade-style munitions.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Puerto Rico
regulators shut down three banks that had struggled to stay afloat
during Puerto Rico's grinding, four-year recession. A judge in Puerto
Rico sentenced two former police officers to prison for the beating
death of a suspect who was detained in 2003 for allegedly stealing a
patrol car.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Russia Vera
Trifonova (53), who was reported to have diabetes and chronic kidney
failure, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina jail. Trifonova, the head of a
real estate company, had been jailed since December on fraud charges.
The next day Pres. Medvedev ordered investigators to determine why
another person has died in the same Moscow jail where lawyer Sergei
Magnitsky died last year of an untreated illness.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, In south Sudan at
least seven people were killed after men said to be affiliated with a
defeated candidate in regional elections attacked an army base.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Taiwan carried out a
death sentence for the first time since 2005, executing 4 inmates as a
heated debate rages on the island over whether capital punishment
should be abolished.
(AP, 5/1/10)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to May 1