Looking Back: 30 April

2007-04-30T20:05:00+02:00

Starting my 'today in history' feature, on a perhaps inauspicious day ...

30 APRIL is ...

Walpurgisnacht, the Witches' Sabbath, held on Brocken Mountain, in the Hartz Mountains in north central Germany, 'a time of great evil generally.' It's the eve of Beltane, or May Day (as Hallowe'en on Oct. 30 is the eve of All Saints' Day on Nov. 1). Rather oddly, the day takes its name from a female Catholic saint, St. Walburga, born in Devonshire, England in A.D. 710. The main feature of the celebration is large bonfires. Walpurgisnacht is also celebrated in Sweden, Finland, Holland, Lithuanian, Latvia, the Czech Republic, and other northern European countries under slightly different names.

Sources: Wikipedia / Customs of the Liturgical Year

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>>> 32 years since Saigon fell to the Vietnam People's Army (Vietcong and North Vietnamese) and was rennamed Ho Chi Ming City. (1975). This marks the official end of the war in Vietnam.

Sources: BBC's Fall of Saigon / Wikipedia / Walter Boyne at Airforce Magazine Online

>>> 52 years since Fuhrer of the Third Reich Adolph Hitler committed suicide in his bunker underneath the Reich Chancellery building in Berlin, along with his new bride, Eva Braun (1945). The day before he committed suicide, Hitler ordered that the cyanide capsules intended for him be tested on his Alsatian dog Blondi and her puppy, Wulf, who both died. The next day, Hitler shot himself in the head and Eva Braun died of cyanide poisoning. Their bodies were burned, as he had ordered, wishing to avoid the humiliating public spectacle of his body on exhibit, like Mussolini's and his mistress's two days before. Hitler's death was reported to the German people the next day as having occurred while he was fighting 'at the head of his troops.'

Sources: HistoryPlace WWII Timeline: Death of Hitler / Jewish Virtual Library: Adolph Hitler / Washington Post: "The Death of Hitler: The Full Story with New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives" by Ada Petrova and Peter Watso / Wikipedia

>>> 204 years since the Louisiana Purchase, in which the U.S. entered into a treaty to buy the Louisiana Territory and New Orleans from the French (1803). Probably not coincidentally, it's also 195 years since Louisiana became the 18th U.S. state (1812). The treaty for the Louisiana Purchase is dated April 30, signed on May 2, reached Washington DC on July 14, and was ratified on Oct. 20, 2003. The Territory purchased was more than 800,000 square miles, extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; eventually, that land became all or part of these states: Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, Texas, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Colorado and Montana. The price was 60 million francs, about $15 million.

Sources: Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Louisiana Purchase Treaty / Monticello: The Louisiana Purchase / Louisiana Purchase Historical Overview / Wikipedia /

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Looking Back: 30 April