History of the Day for:
April 30
- 1789: George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States.
- 1803: For $15 million, France sold the Louisiana Purchase to America, nearly doubling the country's size.
- 1812: Louisiana became the 18th state.
- 1900: Hawaii became a U.S. territory; American railroad engineer Casey Jones died saving passengers as the Cannonball Express crashed.
- 1939: The New York World's Fair officially opened. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first chief executive to appear on TV when he spoke at the opening ceremonies; Lou Gehrig played his last game with the New York Yankees.
- 1944: Baseball's New York Giants whipped the Brooklyn Dodgers, 26-8, setting a major?league record for most runs driven in by a team in a single game.
- 1945: Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin; Russian troops penetrated Berlin, capturing the Reichstag and other government buildings; Allied troops captured Munich and the French crossed the border into Austria.
- 1947: The Boulder Dam reverted to its original name, the Hoover Dam.
- 1948: The Organization of American States held its first meeting in Bogota, Colombia.
- 1970: President Nixon announced the U.S. was sending troops to Cambodia.
- 1973: President Nixon announced the resignations of top aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, along with Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst and White House counsel John Dean.
- 1975: The South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces.
- 1993: Tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a match in Hamburg, Germany, by a man who described himself as a fan of the second-ranked Steffi Graf.
- 1997: ABC aired the "coming out" episode of the sitcom "Ellen."
- 1999: Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bringing the number of members to 10.
- 2001: The Mitchell Report on the Arab-Israeli conflict is published.
- 2002: A referendum in Pakistan overwhelmingly approves the Presidency of Pervez Musharraf for another five years.
- 2004: U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
- 2008: Two skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters.
- 2009: Chrysler automobile company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
- 2009: Failed attack on the Dutch Royal Family results in 7 deaths and 17 injured.
- 2009: The United Kingdom formally ends combat operations in Iraq.