The Daily Standard
World News
Today is Thursday, April 30, the 120th day of 2026. There are 245 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War ended as the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces.
Also on this date:
In 1789, George Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall in New York as the first president of the United States.
In 1803, the United States completed its purchase of the 828,000 square-mile (2,140,000 square-kilometer) Louisiana Territory from France for 60 million francs, the equivalent of about $15 million at the time; the acquisition roughly doubled the size of the United States.
In 1900, engineer John Luther "Casey" Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad died in a train wreck near Vaughan, Mississippi, staying at the controls to slow his passenger train before it struck a stalled train near an approaching station; Jones was the only fatality of the accident.
In 1945, as Soviet troops approached his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler took his own life, as did Eva Braun, whom Hitler married the previous day.
In 1973, as the Watergate scandal deepened, President Richard Nixon announced the resignations of top aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst and White House counsel John Dean (though Dean was actually fired by Nixon).
In 1993, top-ranked women's tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a match in Hamburg, Germany, by a man who described himself as a fan of second-ranked German player Steffi Graf. (The man was convicted of causing grievous bodily injury, and was only given a two-year suspended sentence.)
In 1993, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced that the World Wide Web, which was invented at CERN four years earlier by Tim Berners-Lee, was free for anyone to use, and released its source code to the public domain.
In 2013, millions of Dutch people dressed in orange flocked to celebrations for a once-in-a-generation milestone for the Netherlands' ruling House of Orange-Nassau: after a 33-year reign, Queen Beatrix abdicated in favor of her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, who became king.
In 2019, Japan's 85-year-old Emperor Akihito abdicated his throne, ending his three-decade reign; his son Crown Prince Naruhito ascended to the Chrysanthemum Throne. (Japan's last abdication was when Emperor Kokaku abdicated in 1817.)
Today's Birthdays: U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is 77. Filmmaker Jane Campion is 72. Filmmaker Lars von Trier is 70. Basketball Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas is 65. Actor Johnny Galecki is 51. Actor Sam Heughan is 46. Actor Kunal Nayyar is 45. Rapper Lloyd Banks is 44. Actor Kirsten Dunst is 44. Basketball Hall of Famer Seimone Augustus is 42. Actor Gal Gadot is 41. Actor Dianna Agron is 40. Actor Ana de Armas is 38. Rapper-producer Travis Scott is 35. Rapper Lil Tjay is 25. Actor Emily Carey is 23.
