128 things happened on 30 September, from AD 420 to 2024. UK stories come first, then the rest of the world.
1791 · 235 years ago
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the first performance of his opera The Magic Flute in Vienna. It is sung in German and mixes songs with spoken words. It was a great success from the start and is still performed regularly. It was Mozart's last opera, and he …
UK history first: stories from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
UK story
An English and Breton army beat a much larger French and Breton force near Morlaix, in Brittany. It was the first land battle of the Hundred Years' War, a long series of wars between England and France. England had joined a fight over who should rule Brittany, supporting John of Montfort. The French backed his rival, Charles of Blois, a nephew of the French king.
UK story
Henry Bolingbroke was proclaimed King Henry IV of England. He had taken the throne from his cousin, King Richard II, whom he imprisoned and removed from power. Henry was the first king from the House of Lancaster. He was also the first English ruler since the Norman Conquest whose first language was English rather than French.
UK story
The British ocean liner RMS Mauretania made a record-breaking westbound crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. She already held the Blue Riband record for the fastest crossing in the other direction. Now she held both records, and she kept them for 20 years. Mauretania was built at Wallsend on the River Tyne and was the largest ship in the world until 1910.
Suleiman I became sultan, or ruler, of the Ottoman Empire. He is better known as Suleiman the Magnificent. He ruled until 1566, longer than any other Ottoman sultan. During his reign the empire reached a peak of wealth, military strength and political power, and it ruled over at least 25 million people.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the first performance of his opera The Magic Flute in Vienna. It is sung in German and mixes songs with spoken words. It was a great success from the start and is still performed regularly. It was Mozart's last opera, and he died just two months later.
Neville Chamberlain of Britain, Adolf Hitler of Germany and the leaders of France and Italy signed the Munich Agreement. It let Nazi Germany take the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia, which was not part of the meeting. Many people hoped the deal would prevent a major war, but within months Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia. The agreement is now seen as a failure of appeasement, which means giving in to demands to keep the peace.
The Berlin Airlift officially ended after fifteen months. It began when the Soviet Union blocked the roads, railways and canals into West Berlin, in one of the first big crises of the Cold War. In reply, American and British aircraft flew in food, fuel and other supplies. At the busiest time a plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds, and some crews dropped sweets for children.
The Flintstones was first shown on the American TV channel ABC. It was the first animated sitcom, and the first cartoon series shown in prime time, the evening hours when most people watch. Set in a made-up version of the Stone Age, it follows Fred and Wilma Flintstone, their pet dinosaur Dino, and their friends Barney and Betty Rubble. The original show ran until 1966.
Bechuanaland, in southern Africa, became independent from the United Kingdom and took the new name of the Republic of Botswana. Botswana has no coastline, and about 70% of the country is part of the Kalahari Desert. Its capital and largest city is Gaborone. Botswana celebrates the date every year as Independence Day, a national holiday.
The first Boeing 747 was rolled out and shown to the public. The huge airliner was designed after the airline Pan Am asked for a jet two and a half times the size of Boeing's earlier 707. The design team was led by engineer Joe Sutter. Boeing went on making 747s until 2023.
The Ostrogoths under Theoderic the Great defeat the forces of Odoacer for the second time.
Muslim conquest of Transoxiana: Türgesh tribesmen attacked and captured the exposed baggage train of the Umayyad army, sent ahead of the main force.
Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his forces enter Tula territory in present-day western Arkansas, encountering fierce resistance.
The Venetians under Girolamo Corner take the city of Herceg Novi from the Ottoman Empire.
The Lebanese Council of 1736 begins, a major turning point in the reform of the Maronite Church. In the following three days, the assembled Maronite and Latin clergy presided by Yusuf ibn Siman as-Simani discuss various reforms and elaborate rules and canons.
War of the Austrian Succession: France and Spain defeat Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell'Olmo, but soon have to withdraw from Sardinia.
France's National Constituent Assembly is dissolved, to be replaced the next day by the National Legislative Assembly.
Georges Bizet's opera Les pêcheurs de perles premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris.
The Vulcan Street Plant in Appleton, Wisconsin, the first hydroelectric central station to serve a system of private and commercial customers in North America, went online.
Friedrich Nietzsche finished writing The Antichrist, with the 7 propositions Law Against Christianity, marked by him as a Day of Salvation, Day and Year 1 of a new calendar.
The Royal Galician Academy, the Galician language's biggest linguistic authority, is established in La Coruña, Spain.
Times Square Theater (pictured) opened on Broadway with a production of The Mirage, a play written by its owner, Edgar Selwyn.
The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated.
American journalists Herbert R. Ekins, reporter for the New York World-Telegram, Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal and Leo Kieran of The New York Times start the race to travel around the world on commercial airline flights. The race takes 18 ½ days.
NBC broadcast the first televised American football game, between the Fordham Rams and the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets.
Second World War: General Władysław Sikorski (pictured) became the first prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
The United States Merchant Marine Academy is dedicated by President Roosevelt.
World War II: the Germans commence a counter offensive to retake the Nijmegen salient, this having been captured by the allies during Operation Market Garden.
Pakistan joins the United Nations.
The 1947 World Series begins. It is the first to be televised, to include an African-American player, to exceed $2 million in receipts, to see a pinch-hit home run, and to have six umpires on the field.
The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear-powered vessel.
The Boeing AH-64 Apache (example pictured), the primary attack helicopter for a number of countries, made its first flight.
Ethernet specifications are published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.
Cheers, an American television sitcom, debuted with its pilot episode on NBC.
Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on STS-68.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit organization that manages the assignment of domain names and IP addresses in the Internet, was incorporated.
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published controversial editorial cartoons depicting Muhammad, sparking protests across the Islamic world by many who viewed them as Islamophobic and blasphemous.
Hurricane Matthew becomes a Category 5 hurricane, making it the strongest hurricane to form in the Caribbean Sea since 2007.
President Martín Vizcarra dissolved the Congress of Peru, resulting in a constitutional crisis.
Every answer is somewhere on this page. Have a go, then check!
In which year did this happen: “English and Breton troops win the Battle of Morlaix”?
A: 1342. 1342 — that’s 684 years ago. Find it on the page
In which year did this happen: “Henry Bolingbroke is proclaimed King Henry IV of England”?
A: 1399. 1399 — that’s 627 years ago. Find it on the page
Which of these happened first?
A: English and Breton troops win the Battle of Morlaix. 1342: English and Breton troops win the Battle of Morlaix · 1909: RMS Mauretania sets an Atlantic speed record that lasts 20 years · 1399: Henry Bolingbroke is proclaimed King Henry IV of England Find it on the page
“RMS Mauretania sets an Atlantic speed record that lasts 20 years” happened in 1909. How many years ago was that?
C: 117 years. 2026 − 1909 = 117. Find it on the page
Famous people whose birthday is 30 September.
UK story
Sir Nevill Mott was a British physicist who studied how electrons behave inside materials. His work helped to explain why certain materials sometimes let electricity flow like metals, and sometimes block it. In 1977 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Philip Anderson and John Van Vleck. He died in 1996.
UK story
Jimmy Johnstone was a Scottish footballer who played for Celtic for 13 years. He was nicknamed 'Jinky' because his dribbling made him so hard to catch. He was one of the 'Lisbon Lions', the Celtic team that won the European Cup in 1967. In 2002 Celtic fans voted him the club's greatest ever player.
Well-known people who died on 30 September.
Festivals, holidays and saints’ days celebrated on 30 September somewhere in the world.
Content note: these entries mention things like war, violence, deaths, disasters or crime. They are part of history, but they can be upsetting. Grown-ups and teachers: you may want to read them first. They come straight from Wikipedia and have not been rewritten for children.
Stories with a heading have been written for young readers by A Day in the Past, using the linked articles as sources. Other entries show text from Wikipedia’s “September 30” page and its “On this day” feed, written by Wikipedia contributors and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Each “Read more” link goes to the article an entry is based on. Photos are credited under each picture. Spotted a mistake? Please tell us.