#TodayInHistory – May 30

3 min read

May 30 – Some important events on this day.

1431 👉🏼 Hundred Years’ War: 19 year old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France.
1498 👉🏼 Christopher Columbus departs with 6 ships for 3rd trip to America

1539 👉🏼 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition of 10 ships and 700 men lands in Florida.
Commissioned by the Spanish crown to conquer Florida, Hernando de Soto and his expedition landed on the coast of Florida on this day. He was then one of the wealthiest and most successful of the Spanish conquistadors, having worked as a slave trader in Panama and the West Indies and as Francisco Pizarro’s second-in-command during the conquest of Peru.
His travels through the American south east in search of conquest and treasure would last three years. In 1841 his expedition made the first European sighting of the Mississippi River. De Soto died of a fever in 1542 and his body was interned in the Mississippi River.

1626 👉🏼 An explosion at the Wanggongchang Gunpowder Factory in Beijing destroys part of the city and kills 20,000 people 💥
1631 👉🏼 The Treaty of Fontainebleau signed between Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, and the Kingdom of France, establishing a secret alliance between them during the Thirty Years’ War.
1635 👉🏼 The Peace of Prague signed between the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II and the Electorate of Saxony (representing Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire). It effectively ended the civil war aspect of the Thirty Years’ War.

1778 👉🏼 Voltaire (✔️ Read the article), dies on this day at the age of 83.

1806 👉🏼 Future US President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accused Jackson’s wife of bigamy.
1848 👉🏼 Mexico ratifies treaty giving US; New Mexico, California & parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million
1868 👉🏼 “Decoration Day”, later called Memorial Day is first observed in Northern US states.
1896 👉🏼 1st car accident occurs, Henry Wells hits a cyclist in NYC 🚘
1913 👉🏼 Treaty of London signed by the Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire and the victorious Balkan League (Serbia, Greece, Kingdom of Bulgaria, and Montenegro) bringing an end to the First Balkan War.
1921 👉🏼 Salzburg, Austria, votes to join Germany 🇩🇪
1967 👉🏼 Gabriel García Márquez’s most important work “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is published in Buenos Aires ✍🏼
1987 👉🏼 North American Philips Company unveils compact disc video 💿
2016 👉🏼 Former Chad dictator Hissène Habré convicted of crimes against humanity by the Extraordinary African chambers, 1st ex-head of state convicted of the charge.