Today is Wednesday, Jan. 30, the 30th day of 2019. There are 335 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 30, 1948, Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, 78, was shot and killed in New Delhi by Nathuram Godse (neh-too-RAHM’ gahd-SAY’), a Hindu extremist. (Godse and a co-conspirator were later executed.)
On this date:
In 1649, England’s King Charles I was executed for high treason.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. The first episode of the “Lone Ranger” radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in Detroit.
In 1945, during World War II, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the German ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea with the loss of more than 9,000 lives, most of them war refugees; roughly 1,000 people survived. Adolf Hitler marked the 12th anniversary of his appointment as Germany’s chancellor with his last public speech in which he called on Germans to keep resisting until victory.
In 1948, aviation pioneer Orville Wright, 76, died in Dayton, Ohio.
In 1962, two members of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance at the State Fair Coliseum in Detroit.
In 1968, the Tet Offensive began during the Vietnam War as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese towns and cities; although the Communists were beaten back, the offensive was seen as a major setback for the U.S. and its allies.
In 1969, The Beatles staged an impromptu concert atop Apple headquarters in London; it was the group’s last public performance.
In 1972, 13 Roman Catholic civil rights marchers were shot to death by British soldiers in Northern Ireland on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In 1973, the rock group KISS performed its first show at a club in Queens, N.Y.
In 1981, an estimated 2 million New Yorkers turned out for a ticker-tape parade honoring the American hostages freed from Iran.
In 1993, Los Angeles inaugurated its Metro Red Line, the city’s first modern subway.
In 2006, Coretta Scott King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, at age 78.
