June 30

1559 Nostradamus predicted the death in a jousting accident of King Henry II of France. When he was summoned to Paris in 1556, Nostradamus feared he would be beheaded but instead he became a confidante to Queen Catherine de' Medici. On June 30, 1559 Nostradamus was ensconced back in his Salon study when Henry II suffered a terrible head wound whilst jousting against Gabriel Montgomery of the Garde Écossaise. The French king died three weeks later, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

1859 On June 30, 1859 French tightrope walker Charles Blondin successfully crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, 160 ft (49 m) above the water, near the location of the current Rainbow Bridge.
He repeated the feat a number of times thereafter, always with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelette and standing on a chair with only one chair leg on the rope.

Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara River in 1859

1898 The first car advert was published on June 30, 1898 in the Scientific American magazine. It was placed by the Winton Motor Carriage Company, a pioneer automaker from Cleveland, Ohio. The ad featured a simple drawing of a car and the headline "Dispense with a Horse." The copy went on to explain the benefits of owning an automobile, such as its speed, reliability, and ease of operation.

1901 American bank robber Willie Sutton was born on June 30, 1901. During his forty-year robbery career Sutton stole an estimated $2 million. He never robbed a bank with a loaded gun because he didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and allegedly never robbed a bank when a woman screamed or a baby cried. He eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison and escaped three times.

1908 On the morning of June 30, 1908, a large explosion occurred in the the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga. An estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest were flattened, and  at least three people may have died in the event. The explosion is believed to have caused by the air burst of a stony meteoroid about 100 metres (328 feet) in size. The Siberian Tunguska event was the largest impact event on Earth in recent history.

1911 After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established. On June 30, 1911, less than a year after the downfall of the constitutional monarchy, the design for the new national Portuguese flag (see below) was adopted.

1933 Cookie was a male Major Mitchell's cockatoo residing at Brookfield Zoo, near Chicago. Born on June 30, 1933, he was believed to be the oldest member of his species alive in captivity, dying at the age of 83, having significantly exceeded the average lifespan for his kind. Cookie was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living parrot in the world

1934 The Night of the Long Knives is a descriptive phrase that was applied to the night of June 30, 1934 when Hitler, assisted by Himmler's SS, carried out a series of political murders, executing at least 85 people.  Many of those killed were leaders of the SA, the paramilitary Brownshirts. The best-known victim was Ernst Röhm, the SA's leader and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies.

1936 Margaret Mitchell's only novel Gone with the Wind was published in New York City on June 30, 1936. Despite being sold at the virtually unprecedented high price of three dollars, sales reached about 1 million by the end of December.

1937 The emergency 999 phone service, the first of its kind in the world, was introduced to Britain on June 30, 1937. It followed a two-year inquiry into the deaths of five women in a London fire in 1935. Tory MP Sir Sidney Herbert had suggested a special emergency button on the handset instead, saying: "How can a lady with a burglar in the house remember to dial 999?"

1953 The first Corvette rolled off the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, Michigan on June 30, 1953. That early 'Vette' sold for $3,250.The name "Corvette" was picked out of a dictionary by Chevrolet PR exec Myron Scott; the word refers to a fast ship that’s easy to maneuver.

1962 The Trans-Canada Highway officially opened on June 30, 1962. The Trans-Canada Highway travels through all ten provinces of Canada between its Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. It is, along with the Trans-Siberian Highway and Australia's Highway 1, one of the world's longest national highways, with the main route spanning 8,030 kilometers (4,990 mi). The highway is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers.

1964 In 1964, the islands of Zanzibar joined Tanganyika to form Tanzania. Its flag was adopted on June 30, 1964 to replace the individual flags of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The design of Tanzania's flag incorporates the elements from the two former flags.

1966 The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, was founded in Washington D.C. on June 30, 1966. It was started by 28 people attending the Third National Conference of State Commissions on the Status of Women, the successor to the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.

1966 Michael Gerard Tyson was born on June 30, 1966 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York. Tyson had been arrested 38 times by the age of 13. He said he was bullied as a "pudgy kid" who spoke with a lisp, causing him to turn to crime and drugs. He learned boxing at reform school, and by 20 was the heavyweight champion.

1974 On June 30, 1974, Alberta Williams King, mother of Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in church.  The 69-year-old former schoolteacher was shot by Black Hebrew Israelite Marcus Wayne Chenault Sr. as she sat at the organ of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Chenault Sr. was a mentally ill man who targeted Mrs. King due to his delusional beliefs.

1985 American swimmer Michael Phelps was born on June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland. Phelps was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder when he was nine and was bullied as a kid for his gangly form and big ears. The first swimming stroke Michael Phelps learned as a child was the backstroke, because he was afraid to put his head underwater.

1985 13-year-old Ryan White was denied re-admittance to his school on June 30, 1985, following a diagnosis of AIDS he had contracted during treatments for hemophilia; his legal battle made him a poster child for the disease in the U.S. He died in April 1990, one month before his high school graduation.