History of the Day for:
June 30
- 1520: Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor, was killed during the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
- 1815: U.S. naval hero Stephen Decatur ended attacks by Algerian pirates by threatening to bomb Algiers.
- 1859: Watched by 25,000 people, Charles Blondin walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
- 1870: Ada H. Kepley became the first woman to graduate from an American law school.
- 1896: W. S. Hadaway patented the electric stove.
- 1908: A huge explosion rocked eastern Siberia. Believed to be an exploding meteorite, the resulting earth tremor was felt as far away as central Europe.
- 1936: Margaret Mitchell's novel "Gone with the Wind" was published.
- 1948: Three Bell Laboratory scientists invented the transistor.
- 1953: The first Corvette was manufactured.
- 1967: Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. became the first U.S. black astronaut.
- 1971: The 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, lowering the voting age to 18; three crew members of the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz II died on re-entry.
- 1974: Alberta King, mother of the late Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated during a church service; Soviet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to the West.
- 1986: The Supreme Court upheld Georgia's sodomy law, ruling states could ban homosexual acts between consenting adults.
- 1990: East and West Germany merged their economies.
- 1991: 32 miners are killed when a coal mine fire in the Donbass region of the Ukraine releases toxic gas.
- 1992: Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joins the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.
- 1997: The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
- 1997: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is first published in the UK, commencing the series.
- 2007:A car crashes into Glasgow International Airport in Scotland, in an attempted terrorist attack.
- 2009: Yemenia Flight 626 crashes off the coast of Moroni, Comoros killing 152 people and leaving 1 survivor.