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Explore 30 December

Explore 30 December: four Soviet republics join to form the USSR, José Rizal is shot in Manila, King Michael of Romania is forced from his throne and the United States buys a strip of Mexico. Meet Rudyard Kipling, Patti Smith and Tiger Woods, born on this date.

This day through time →8 verified events across 3 eras

⌛8Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙5Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉2Firsts &
Discoveries ☉1Observances
The cover of the 1922 Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the USSR, now in the Russian state archives.
The cover of the 1922 Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the USSR, now in the Russian state archives.
Image creditState Register of Unique Documents of the Archival Fund of the Russian Federation · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1922

The Soviet Union is formed

Five years after the Bolshevik revolution, delegates from the Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet republics and the Transcaucasian Federation met in Moscow at the First All-Union Congress of Soviets. On 30 December 1922 the congress approved the Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

On paper the republics were equal and free to leave; in practice power lay in Moscow and with the Communist Party. The union’s first constitution followed in January 1924. At its height the USSR had fifteen republics and covered a sixth of the world’s land, until it broke apart in 1991.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Presidential Library (Russia): Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the USSR were signed ↗
José Rizal, writer, doctor and national hero of the Philippines.
José Rizal, writer, doctor and national hero of the Philippines.
Image creditunknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1896

José Rizal is executed in Manila

José Rizal, a doctor and writer whose novels Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo exposed the abuses of Spanish rule in the Philippines, was put on trial for sedition after the Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896, although he had not taken part in it.

At about seven in the morning of 30 December 1896 he was shot by a firing squad at Bagumbayan field in Manila. His death strengthened the revolution, and he is honoured as the Philippines’ national hero; the field is now Rizal Park.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Historical Commission of the Philippines: why we celebrate Rizal Day every 30th of December ↗
King Michael I of Romania.
King Michael I of Romania.
Image creditJozef Trylinski · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1947

King Michael is forced to give up Romania’s throne

King Michael of Romania had led the coup that took his country out of alliance with Nazi Germany in 1944, but after the war the Soviet Union steadily installed a communist government around him. On 30 December 1947 the prime minister, Petru Groza, and the communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej forced him to sign his abdication.

The same day Romania was declared a People’s Republic, and within days Michael left for exile. He was not allowed back until the 1990s, after the fall of communism, and died in 2017.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Michael, King of Romania ↗
Herman Ehrenberg's 1858 map of the Gadsden Purchase and neighbouring lands, from the US National Archives.
Herman Ehrenberg’s 1858 map of the Gadsden Purchase and neighbouring lands, from the US National Archives.
Image creditDepartment of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. 9/17/1947 · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1853

The United States buys the Gadsden Purchase

In Mexico City on 30 December 1853 the American minister James Gadsden and envoys of President Antonio López de Santa Anna signed a treaty selling the United States about 30,000 square miles of land south of the Gila River, in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico.

The United States wanted a flat route for a southern railway to California; Santa Anna needed money. After the Senate trimmed the treaty, the price was $10 million. It was the last large piece of land added to the mainland United States.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Gadsden Purchase, 1853-1854 ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Rudyard Kipling
Image creditElliott & Fry · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1865

Rudyard Kipling

Bombay-born writer of The Jungle Book and Kim, the first English-language winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Gordon Banks
Image creditChristophe95 · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1937

Gordon Banks

England goalkeeper who won the 1966 World Cup and made a famous save from Pelé in 1970.

Patti Smith
Image creditHarald Krichel · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1946

Patti Smith

American singer and poet whose 1975 album Horses helped shape punk rock.

Tiger Woods
Image creditThe White House · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1975

Tiger Woods

American golfer who has won fifteen major championships.

LeBron James
Image creditErik Drost · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1984

LeBron James

American basketball player, the highest points scorer in NBA history.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

Hisui Sugiura's poster for the opening of Tokyo's first underground railway, 1927.
Hisui Sugiura’s poster for the opening of Tokyo’s first underground railway, 1927.
Image creditHisui Sugiura · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1927

Asia’s first underground railway opens in Tokyo

On 30 December 1927 the Tokyo Underground Railway opened a 2.2-kilometre line between Ueno and Asakusa, the first underground railway in Asia. Its founder, Noritsugu Hayakawa, had been inspired by the London Underground on a visit to Britain.

The line was later extended through Ginza, and it is still in daily use as Tokyo Metro’s Ginza Line.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Tokyo Metro: corporate history ↗
The waterfront at Apia, the capital of Samoa.
The waterfront at Apia, the capital of Samoa.
Image creditMichael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
2011

Samoa skips 30 December

At midnight at the end of Thursday 29 December 2011, Samoa moved from the east side of the International Date Line to the west, going straight to Saturday 31 December. For Samoans, Friday 30 December 2011 never happened. The neighbouring territory of Tokelau made the same jump.

The prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, said the old time zone cost the country two working days a week with its main trading partners, Australia and New Zealand. Samoa went from being one of the last places on Earth to see the new year to one of the first.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: why did Samoa move the International Date Line? ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Trygve Lie
Image creditatelier Benkow · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Died 1968

Trygve Lie

Norwegian politician, the first Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1946 to 1952.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 30 December chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 8 verified events and the sources behind them.

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