August 30

1797 Frankenstein author Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin at The Polygon in Somers Town, London on August 30, 1797. Her father, the anarchist philosopher William Godwin, and her feminist mother Mary Wollstonecraft, were both political writers. Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever ten days after Mary's birth leaving Godwin to bring up Mary and her older half-sister, Under her father’s tutelage, Mary received an excellent education, which was unusual for girls at the time.

The Polygon (left) where Mary Shelley was born and raised

1835 Settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) landing on the north banks of the Yarra River in Southern Australia founded the city of Melbourne on August 30, 1835. The settlement was established by a party led by John Pascoe Fawkner and another group led by John Batman, which arrived two days later. The settlement was named "Melbourne" after the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.

1836 The city of Houston was founded оn August 30, 1836 on land near the banks of Buffalo Bayou (now known as Allen's Landing) by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen. The settlement was named after General Sam Houston (see below), who fought for Texas freedom. His victory at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 secured the independence of Texas from Mexico. He was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas a week after the founding of Houston.

Sam Houston

1871 Physicist and chemist Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871 on a small farm at Brightwater near Nelson, New Zealand. His father, James Rutherford, was a farmer, and his mother, Martha Thompson, a schoolteacher. The father of nuclear physics, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908, for his work on nuclear physics, and for the theory of the structure of the atom. In 1917 he became the first person to split the atom in a nuclear reaction. 

1901 Hubert Booth of Glasgow, Scotland patented his device for extracting dust from carpets by suction on August 30, 1901. Soon after, he coined the phrase “vacuum cleaner”, in calling his business “The Vacuum Cleaner Company Ltd”. Hubert Booth's sucking cleaning device looked nothing like a modern vacuum cleaner. The enormous five horse-power motor and pump were mounted on a horse-drawn carriage, while long tubes up to 25 yards long reached into the building that was being cleaned.

Hubert Cecil Booth and his vacuum cleaner 1901. Wikipedia

1905 In 1904, the French composer Claude Debussy started an affair with Emma Bardac, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac. The scandal alienated Debussy from many of his friends and Bardac was disowned by her family. Finding the hostility towards them intolerable, Debussy and the pregnant Bardac fled to England, staying at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne from July 24 to August 30, 1905. Their daughter was born in Paris two months later and Debussy and Bardac eventually married in 1908.

1918 Vladimir Lenin experienced several assassination attempts, including one on August 30, 1918 when he was shot and wounded by Dora Kaplan, a young girl from the intellectual class. The shooting took place as he was leaving a Moscow factory. The first shot penetrated Lenin's chest causing hemorrhaging in his chest; the second entered his back causing internal hemorrhaging in the stomach. His injuries caused his health to decline and he died aged 53 in January 1924.

Vladimir Pchelin's depiction of the assassination attempt

1919 American microbiologist Maurice Hilleman was born on August 30, 1919. Eight of the fifteen vaccines that are routinely recommended today were developed by him. They are the ones those for measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia and Haemophilus influenzae bacteria. He is credited with saving more lives than any other medical scientist of the 20th century.

1940 Despite being disabled, Douglas Bader learned to fly using artificial legs and on the outbreak of the Second World War was allowed to rejoin the RAF. After Douglas Bader was given command of 242 Squadron, their first sortie during the Battle of Britain on August 30, 1940, resulted in the shooting down of 12 German planes over the Channel in just over an hour. Bader himself was responsible for downing two Messerschmitt 110. 

1961 James B. Parsons became the first African American man to be confirmed as a judge in a U.S. District Court on August 30, 1961 when he was appointed to United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He served as chief judge from 1975 to 1981, assuming senior status in August 1981, and serving until his death in office.

1963 The cassette, essentially a miniature reel-to-reel tape mechanism in an enclosure, was developed by Philips and introduced in Europe on August 30, 1963 at the Berlin Radio Show. The world's first cassette player was made available by Philip in the US in November 1964. By 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone. The cassette's popularity grew further as a result of portable pocket recorders and high-fidelity ("hi-fi") players, such as Sony's Walkman (1979). 

1983 The first African American to travel in space was U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford. A decorated Air Force pilot in Vietnam before joining NASA as an astronaut in the late 1970s, Bluford participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992, beginning on August 30, 1983.

1988 Orel Hershiser of the Los Angeles Dodgers started his MLB record run of 59 consecutive scoreless innings pitched on August 30, 1988. The pitcher's streak of 59 innings spanned from the sixth inning of a game against the Montreal Expos to the tenth inning of a September 28 game against the San Diego Padres.

1992 Michael Schumacher won the Formula One Grand Prix at the Belgian Grand Prix on August 30, 1992. He was driving for Benetton-Ford at the time. It was the first of Schumacher's record 91 Formula One Grand Prix wins. He went on to win seven world championships, more than any other driver in Formula One history.

1995 Toronto-born Sean Shannon achieved The Guinness World Record for fastest talker when he read the famous Hamlet 'to be, or not to be' soliloquy at a rate of 655 words per minute on August 30, 1995. To qualify for the record, the speaker must recite a passage of 100 consecutive words without making any mistakes. The passage must be chosen by the Guinness World Records adjudicator.

2021 Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and the U.S. National Security Council agreed that military action would probably have to be taken against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, The conflict lasted 19 years and 47 weeks, until August 30, 2021 when the final troops left. It was the United States' longest war, far longer than the country’s great victories and longer even than its previous protracted defeat in Vietnam or stalemate in Korea.

2022 Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died on August 30, 2022 at the age of 91.

Gorbachev introduced a number of reforms known as glasnost and perestroika, which aimed to open up the Soviet Union and make it more democratic. He also worked to improve relations with the West. Gorbachev's reforms were met with resistance from some members of the Communist Party, and he was eventually forced to resign in 1991.