Today in History: January 30, Hitler becomes German chancellor
Image shows the front page of the German national newspaper “Vorwärts” (Ahead) from Monday, January 30, 1933, reporting on the formation of the new German Cabinet with Hitler as Chancellor and von Hindenburg as president, with a photo of Nazis and citizens at the Lustgarten yesterday in Berlin January 29, 1933. (AP Photo)
Today in History:
On Jan. 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany.
On this date:
In 1649, England’s King Charles I was executed for high treason.
In 1911, James White, an intellectually disabled young Black man who had been convicted of rape for having sex with a 14-year-old white girl when he was 16, was publicly hanged in Bell County, Kentucky.
In 1945, during World War II, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the German ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea, killing 9,000, most of them war refugees; roughly 1,000 people survived.
In 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.
In 1968, the Tet Offensive began during the Vietnam War as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese towns and cities.
In 1969, The Beatles staged an impromptu concert atop Apple headquarters in London that would be their last public performance.
In 1972, 13 Roman Catholic civil rights marchers were shot and killed by British soldiers in Northern Ireland on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In 1993, Los Angeles inaugurated its Metro Red Line, the city’s first modern subway.
In 2005, Iraqis voted in their country’s first free election in a half-century; President George W. Bush called the balloting a resounding success.
In 2006, Coretta Scott King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, at age 78.
In 2017, President Donald Trump fired Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates after she publicly questioned the constitutionality of his controversial refugee and immigration ban and refused to defend it in court.
In 2020, health officials reported the first known case in which the new coronavirus was spread from one person to another in the United States.