Events on October 30 48
Year 637
Antioch surrenders to the Muslim forces under Rashidun Caliphate after the Battle of the Iron Bridge.
Year 1270
The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis end by an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis.
Year 1340
Portuguese and Castilian forces halt a Marinid invasion at the Battle of Río Salado.
Year 1501
Ballet of Chestnuts: A banquet held by Cesare Borgia in the Papal Palace where fifty prostitutes or courtesans are in attendance for the entertainment of the guests.
Year 1657
Spanish forces fail to retake Jamaica at the Battle of Ocho Rios during the Anglo-Spanish War.
Year 1806
Believing he is facing a much larger force, Prussian Lieutenant General Friedrich von Romberg, commanding 5,300 men, surrendered the city of Stettin to 800 French soldiers commanded by General Lassalle.
Year 1831
In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.
Year 1863
Danish Prince Vilhelm arrives in Athens to assume his throne as George I, King of the Hellenes.
Year 1864
Second Schleswig War ends. Denmark renounces all claim to Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, which come under Prussian and Austrian administration.
Year 1864
Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch".
Year 1888
Rudd Concession granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to agents of Cecil Rhodes led by Charles Rudd.
Year 1894
Domenico Melegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.
Year 1905
Czar Nicholas II of Russia issues the October Manifesto, granting the Russian peoples basic civil liberties and the right to form a duma. This was October 17 in the Julian calendar.
Year 1938
Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.
Year 1941
World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.
Year 1941
One thousand and five hundred Jews from Pidhaytsi (in western Ukraine) are sent by Nazis to Bełżec extermination camp.
Year 1942
Lt. Tony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and canteen assistant Tommy Brown from HMS Petard board U-559, retrieving material which would lead to the decryption of the German Enigma code.
Year 1944
Anne and Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they die from disease the following year, shortly before the end of WWII.
Year 1945
Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color line.
Year 1947
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is founded.
Year 1953
Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.
Year 1960
Dr.Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Year 1961
The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; equivalent to 57 megatons of TNT, it remains the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.
Year 1961
Due to "violations of Vladimir Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin Wall with a plain granite marker instead.
Year 1965
English model Jean Shrimpton causes a global sensation by wearing a daring white minidress to Derby Day at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia.
Year 1965
Vietnam War: United States Marines repel an intense attack by Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas near Da Nang.
Year 1970
In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes severe floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.
Year 1973
The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus for the second time.
Year 1974
The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire.
Year 1975
Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.
Year 1980
El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.
Year 1983
The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.
Year 1985
Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.
Year 1987
In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit (fourth generation) video game console, the PC Engine, which is later sold in other markets under the name TurboGrafx-16.
Year 1993
The Troubles: Loyalists carry out a mass shooting at a Halloween party in Greysteel, Northern Ireland, killing eight civilians, six Catholics and two Protestants.
Year 1995
Quebec citizens narrowly vote (50.58% to 49.42%) in favour of remaining a province of Canada in their second referendum on national sovereignty.
Year 2005
The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project.
Year 2014
Sweden is the first European Union member state to officially recognize the State of Palestine.
Year 2015
Sixty-four people are killed and more than 147 injuries after a fire in a nightclub in the Romanian capital Bucharest.