December 30
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Featured Event
© A. De Gregorio—De Agostini/Getty Images
The major elements of the Code of Justinian went into effect, according to many sources, on this day in 533. Developed between 529 and 565, this collection of laws and legal interpretations rationalized a confusing tangle of existing Roman statutes, and it provided the foundation for civil law as it is practiced in Europe and Latin America today. [Read today’s edition of Today in History >>]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© David Stokes
Born this day in Chicago in 1946, Patti Smith—a poet, songwriter, singer, and visual artist—blazed a trail for punk rock artists, especially women, in the 1970s. She published several acclaimed memoirs about her life and career as one of rock’s most avant-garde artists.
Famous Birthdays
More on December 30
© 1936 The Great Ziegfeld/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
2014
Luise Rainer, the first person to receive two Academy Awards for acting, died at age 104. [Who votes for the Academy Awards?]
© youlia20/stock.adobe.com
1986
The British government announced that electronic sensors would begin to replace canaries as early-warning detectors of carbon monoxide in coal mines. [Discover more about six other animals that have jobs.]
© Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
1984
LeBron James, one of the greatest all-around basketball players of all time, was born in Akron, Ohio. [Take our quiz about basketball player nicknames.]
© Jerry Coli/Dreamstime.com
1975
Tiger Woods—the first player to win consecutively golf’s four major tournaments (the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship)—was born in Cypress, California. [Test your knowledge of golf.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1922
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established, with its capital in Moscow. [Why did the U.S.S.R. collapse in 1991?]
Photo Harlingue/H. Roger-Viollet
1916
Grigori Rasputin was murdered by Russian conservatives—who reportedly poisoned, shot, and then drowned the Siberian mystic—in an effort to halt his influence over Empress Alexandra and the royal family. [How much do you know about Russia?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1902
British naval officer and explorer Robert Falcon Scott, in company with Ernest Henry Shackleton and E.A. Wilson, set a new record for reaching the farthest point south, on the Ross Ice Shelf at the head of the Ross Sea in Antarctica. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Antarctica.]
© Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-USZ62-43453)
1896
José Rizal—a physician, man of letters, and leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement—was publicly executed by the Spanish rulers of the country, enraging and uniting Filipinos. He had been convicted of sedition after an insurrection in the Philippines in which he had no direct role. [How did the Philippine Revolution change the history of the Philippines?]
© spatuletail/Shutterstock.com
1853
The United States acquired nearly 30,000 square miles (78,000 square km) of northern Mexican territory with the signing of the Gadsden Purchase. [Test your knowledge of U.S. history.]
Chicago History Museum, ICHi-09404; Schloss, photographer
1847
The reformist Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld, known principally for his pardon of Chicagoans alleged to have been involved in the Haymarket Affair, was born in Niederselters, Prussia.
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London
1816
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley married, two years after they had eloped to France while Shelley was still married. She would publish Frankenstein about a year later, and her poet husband would drown six years later.
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1803
During the Maratha Wars, the Maratha chief Daulat Rao Sindhia signed the Treaty of Surji-Arjungaon, ceding political power and territory in India to the British. [How much do you know about India?]