Once Upon A Time – June 30 – 2002 – First World Cup Held In Asia, Brazil Beats Germany In Record 5th Title

1520 Spanish conquistadors are expelled from Tenochtitlan following an Aztec revolt against their rule under Hernán Cortés during “La Noche Triste” (the Night of Sadness).

1860 Famous debate on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution held at the Oxford University Museum and dominated by arguments between Thomas Henry Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce

1905 In Russia, the “Potemkin” arrives at Odessa, where sailors take the bodies of dead crewman ashore; sailors join civilians in revolutionary actions of the ‘1905 Revolution’

1908 A giant fireball, most likely caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet flattens 80 million trees near the Stony Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia, in the largest impact event in recorded history

1934 “Night of Long Knives” – Adolf Hitler stages a bloody purge of the Nazi party

1938 Superman 1st appears in DC Comics’ Action Comics Series issue #1

1992 South African ANC President Nelson Mandela meets with UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at Dakar

1997 British lease on the New Territories in Hong Kong, established by the Second Convention of Peking, expires

Historical Events Today Events in 2023

Today in Film & TV

1955 “Johnny Carson Show” debuts on CBS-TV

Today in Music

1992 “End of the Road” single released by Boyz II Men (Grammy Award Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Best R&B Song 1993, Billboard Song of the Year 1992)

Today in Sport

2002 FIFA World Cup Final, International Stadium, Yokohama, Japan: Ronaldo scores twice as Brazil beats Germany, 2-0 to win record 5th title; first World Cup held in Asia

MORE FACTS…

1937 The world’s first emergency call telephone service is launched in London using the number 999

1898 Winton Motor Carriage Company publishes the first known automobile ad in Scientific American using the headline “dispense with a horse.”

Famous Weddings

1831 Soldier and future Confederate General Robert E. Lee (24) marries Mary Custis (22) at Arlington House, Arlington Virginia

1949 Austrian-American filmmaker Billy Wilder (43) weds American actress and singer Audrey Young (27), until his death in 2002

1973 Prime Minister of Canada Joe Clark (34) weds lawyer Maureen McTeer (21)

A massive mysterious explosion in eastern Siberia that destroyed wildlife and felled a vast number of trees remains a mystery to this day – June 30, 1908