July 30: Facts & Historical Events On This Day

Russia’s Klyuchevskoy Volcano erupted on the Kamchatka Peninsula, coinciding with an 8.8 magnitude earthquake.

The earthquake hit off the coast and triggered tsunami warnings across the Pacific, prompting evacuations in Japan and Hawaii and alerts in multiple countries, including China, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

Hackers stole sensitive “Game of Thrones” files from HBO.

On this day, a group of cybercriminals hacked into HBO and stole 1.5 terabytes of data.

Former US Army Private Chelsea Manning was convicted on 17 espionage charges.

Volkswagen stopped production of the old VW Beetle.

Metallica released their single “Enter Sandman.”

Vanuatu gained its independence from the Anglo-French Condominium.

17-year-old Neville Ebbin was riding his electric cycle down a stretch of road in Bermuda when he was hit and killed by a taxi driver named Willard Manders.

One year later - almost to the day - Neville's younger brother (who was now 17) was riding his dead brother's electric cycle on that exact same stretch of road and was hit by the same driver in the same taxi. The taxi driver was also carrying the same passenger.

NASA’s Apollo 15 Lunar mission landed on the Moon’s surface with the first Lunar Rover.

Apollo 15 was the first J mission, a series of missions aimed at spending more time on the Moon's surface conducting scientific experiments. One of the mission's main goals was to try out the new Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), which, if successful, would allow much more extensive experiments as it allowed astronauts to go further afield from the lunar lander without using too much oxygen.

England won the FIFA World Cup Final in London against Germany with a score of 4-2.

President Eisenhower demanded that all US currency would feature the words “In God We Trust.”

The USS Indianapolis vessel was torpedoed and sunk.

The ship sank in just 12 minutes, along with 300 people, while 890 other passengers were left to survive exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks. Only 316 survived the disaster.

Host nation Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 in Montevideo to win the first FIFA World Cup.

28-year-old chemist Eugène Schueller founded a beauty company, which would later be named L’Oreal.

The beauty company was originally called Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux (the French Safe Hair Dye Company).

Abraham Lincoln issued an order called “eye-for-eye,” allowing Union soldiers to one rebel prisoner for every black prisoner the Confederacy shot.

Following the fall of the Umayyads, the city of Baghdad, Iraq, was founded by caliph Al-Mansur the Islamic Ruler.