1930 is a common year starting on Wednesday.

Events

January-February

• January 6 - The first diesel-engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City).
• February 18 - While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
• February 18 - Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in an airplane and also the first cow to be milked in an airplane.

March

• March 2 - Mohandas Gandhi informs British viceroy of India that civil disobedience would begin nine days later
• March 5 - Danish painter Einar Wegener goes through a sexual reassignment surgery and takes the name Lili Elbe
• March 6 - First frozen food products in USA
• March 12 - Mohandas Gandhi sets off to a 200-mile protest march towards the sea with 78 followers to protest the British monopoly on salt - more will join them during the Salt March that ends in April 5
• March 28 - Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara
• March 29 - Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Reichskanzler
• March 31 - The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next forty years

April-May

• April 5 - In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.
• April 6 - Hostess Twinkies are invented.
• April 21 - Fire in Ohio State Penitentiary near Columbus kills 320
• April 22 - The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
• April 28 - The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.
• May 4-5 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested again
• May 15 - Aboard a Boeing tri-motor, Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess (the flight was from Oakland, California to Chicago, Illinois).
• May 17 - French foreign minister André Tardieu decides to withdraw the remaining French troops from the Rheinland. They depart by June 30
• May 20 - Sergei Eisenstein arrives to New York City
• May 24 - Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
• May 30 - Sergei Eisenstein arrives to Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures - they part ways by October

June-August

• June 9 - Chicago Tribune journalist Alfred Lingle is shot in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Newspapers promise $55,000 reward for information. Liddle is later found to have had contacts to organized crime
• June 17 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
• June 17 - Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans mass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
• June 21 - One-year conscription comes into force in France
• July 7 - Lapua Movement marches in Helsinki, Finland
• July 7 - Building of the Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam) is started.
• July 13 - The first football World Cup starts: Lucien Laurent scores the first goal, for France against Mexico
• July 30 - Uruguay beat Argentina in the first football World Cup Final
• July 31 - The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.
• August 7 - Richard Bedford Bennett becomes Canada's eleventh prime minister.
• August 9 - Betty Boop premiers in the animated film Dizzy Dishes .
• August 12 - Turkish troops move into Persia to fight Kurdish insurgents
• August 27 - Military junta takes over in Peru

September-December

• September 6 - Josef Felix Urileu makes a successful military coup in Argentina
• September 12 - Wilfred Rhodes end his 1110-game first-class career by taking 5 for 95 for H.D.G. Leveson Gower's XI against the Australians.
• September 14 - National socialists win 107 seats in German parliament - 18.3% of all the votes makes them second largest party
• September 16 - overthrow of Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina.
• October 5 - British Airship R101 crashed in France en-route to India on its maiden voyage.
• October 24 - Brazil - Revolution of 1930 by Getúlio Dornelles Vargas
• November 2 - Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.
• December 2 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.
• December 19 - Merap volcano erupts - 1300 dead
• December 28 - Mohandas Gandhi leaves for Britain for negotiations

Unknown dates

• British White Paper demands restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine
• Rafael Leónidas Trujillo takes over in the Dominican Republic
• The Federal Bureau of Narcotics replaces the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.
• Walther Bothe and H. Becker discover the neutron.
• Abkhazia and Georgia, autonomous republics of the Soviet Union, are merged.

Year in topic

• 1930 in aviation
• 1930 in film
  • All Quiet on the Western Front
• 1930 in literature
• 1930 in music
• 1930 in rail transport
  • General Motors acquires both Electro-Motive Corporation and Winton Engine Company and combines them to form General Motors Electro-Motive Division.
• 1930 in sports
  • Uruguay wins Football World Cup on home ground
  • British Empire Games held in Hamilton, Canada
• 1930 in television
  • May 22 - An audience at Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady becomes the first to see a closed-circuit television signal projected onto a big screen.
  • November - W9XAP in Chicago broadcasts the U.S. senatorial election returns, which was apparently the first time a senatorial race, with non-stop vote tallies, was ever televised
  • December 7 - W1XAV in Boston broadcasts video from a CBS radio program, The Fox Trappers orchestra program. The broadcast also included the first television commercial (for I. J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show)
  • The BBC begins regular television transmission

Births

January-April

• January 29 - Bobby Bland, blues singer
• March 3 - Heiner Geißler, German politician
• March 6 - Lorin Maazel, French-born American conductor
• March 7 - Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon
• March 19 - Ornette Coleman, musician
• March 22 - Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist
• March 22 - Pat Robertson, Americn televangelist
• March 24 - Steve McQueen, American actor, film director, and producer (d. 1980)
• March 26 - Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court justice
• March 27 - David Janssen, American actor (d. 1980)
• March 30 - John Astin, actor
• March 30 - Rolf Harris, entertainer
• March 30 - Peter Marshall, game show host
• April 3 - Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany
• April 10 - Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist and composer
• April 15 - Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland
• April 21 - Silvana Mangano, actress (d. 1989)
• April 22 - Georges Schoeters , Belgian-born activist
• April 25 - Paul Mazursky, director and writer
• April 29 - Jean Rochefort, French actor

May-August

• May 4 - Roberta Peters, American soprano
• May 8 - Heather Harper, Irish soprano
• May 10 - Pat Summerall, American football player and broadcaster
• May 15 - Jasper Johns, painter
• May 19 - Lorraine Hansberry, playwright (d. 1965)
• May 21 - Malcolm Fraser, twenty-second Prime Minister of Australia
• May 22 - John Barth, American writer
• May 22 - Harvey Milk, politician, civil rights activist (d. 1978)
• May 31 - Clint Eastwood, American actor, director, and producer
• June 12 - Jim Nabors, American actor, musician, and comedian
• June 17 - Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000).
• June 22 - Yuri Artyukhin, cosmonaut (d. 1998)
• June 27 - Ross Perot, American billionaire and politician
• July 2 - Carlos Menem, President of Argentina
• July 4 - George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees
• July 11 - Harold Bloom, American literary critic
• July 25 - Maureen Forrester, Canadian contralto
• August 1 - Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist
• August 5 - Neil Armstrong, astronaut, first person to walk on the moon
• August 12 - George Soros, Hungarian-born American businessman
• August 17 - Ted Hughes, English poet (d. 1998)
• August 21 - Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, sister of Queen Elizabeth II (d. 2002)
• August 25 - Sir Sean Connery, Scottish actor

September-December

• September 3 - Cherry Wilder, author
• September 7 - Baudouin I of Belgium
• September 25 - Shel Silverstein, author, poet, humorist (d. 1999)
• September 26 - Fritz Wunderlich, tenor (d. 1966)
• September 30 - Ray Charles, singer, musician (d. 2004)
• October 1 - Sir Richard Harris, actor (d. 2002)
• October 5 - Pavel Popovich, cosmonaut
• October 8 - Toru Takemitsu, composer (d. 1996)
• October 10 - Harold Pinter, playwright
• October 11 - Sam Johnson, American politician
• October 28 - Bernie Ecclestone, Formula 1 racing tycoon
• October 30 - Timothy Findley, Canadian author
• November 14 - Edward White, American astronaut (d. 1967)
• November 16 - Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer
• December 1 - Joachim Hoffmann, German historian (d. 2002)
• December 11 - Jean-Louis Trintignant, actor
• December 21 - Adebayo Adedeji, professor

Deaths

• February 23 - Horst Wessel, Nazi ideologue, composer
• February 27 - Ahmad Shah Qajar, former Persian Shah of the Qajar dynasty
• March 8 - William Howard Taft, President of the United States, Chief Justice of the United States
• March 19 - Arthur James Balfour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• March 24 - Eugeen Van Mieghem, painter
• April 2 - Empress Zawditu of Ethiopia
• April 21 - Robert Bridges, English poet (b. 1844)
• May 13 - Fridtjof Nansen, explorer
• June 5 - Pascin, the "Prince of Montparnasse"
• July 7 - Arthur Conan Doyle, British author and creator of Sherlock Holmes.
• August 15 - Florian Cajori, historian of mathematics.
• August 29 - William Archibald Spooner, British scholar and Anglican priest
• September 24 - William A. MacCorkle, governor of West Virginia
• October 26 - Harry Payne Whitney , businessman, horse breeder
• November 4 - Buddy Bolden, jazz musician (b. 1877)
• December 9 - Andrew "Rube" Foster, pioneer of Negro League baseball
• December 9 - Laura Muntz Lyall, Canadian impressionist painter
• Jeppe Aakjaer, Danish poet and novelist. (b. 1866)
• Randall Thomas Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1848)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
• Chemistry - Hans Fischer
• Medicine - Karl Landsteiner
• Literature - Sinclair Lewis
• Peace - Archbishop Lars Olof Nathan Söderblom

Heads of state in 1930

• Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King of Italy (1900 - 1946).
• Albert I of Belgium, King of Belgium (1909 - 1934).
• George V of the United Kingdom, King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India (1910 - 1936).
• Christian X of Denmark, King of Denmark and Iceland (1912 - 1947).
• Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary (1920 - 1944).
• Mikhail Kalinin, President of the Soviet Union (1922 - 1946).
• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, President of Turkey (1923 - 1938).
• Paul von Hindenburg, Reich President of Germany (1925 - 1934).
• Hirohito, (Showa Emperor of Japan) (1926 - 1989).
• Zog of Albania, King of Albania (1928 - 1939).
• Herbert Clark Hoover, President of the United States (1929 - 1933).
• Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (1930 - 1936, 1941 - 1974).
• Getulio Vargas, President of Brazil (1930 - 1945, 1950 - 1954).