Today in History, January 30th
On January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi. Plus the beheading of Charles I and the Beatles' rooftop concert.
Published · Last updated
January 30 is best known for the 1948 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, shot in New Delhi while walking to an evening prayer meeting. The date also saw England’s King Charles I beheaded in 1649 and Adolf Hitler named chancellor of Germany in 1933.
The big story: Gandhi Is Assassinated (1948)
Gandhi had helped win India its independence only months earlier, but he did not get to enjoy it. Partition in 1947 had set off waves of killing between Hindus and Muslims, and the 78-year-old spent his last weeks in New Delhi pressing for peace and holding daily prayer meetings at Birla House, where he was staying. On January 20, a bomb went off at one of those meetings and missed him. Ten days later, on the evening of January 30, 1948, he was walking through the Birla House garden to prayers when Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist who objected to Gandhi’s religious tolerance and his approach to Pakistan, stepped up and fired three shots at close range. Gandhi died almost at once. The man who had made nonviolent protest a world force was killed by the violence he spent his life opposing.
More events on January 30
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1649 | King Charles I of England was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London, after Parliament’s court convicted him of treason (Old Style). |
| 1835 | President Andrew Jackson survived an assassination attempt when his would-be killer’s gun misfired. |
| 1862 | The Union ironclad USS Monitor, designed by John Ericsson, was launched into New York’s East River from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. |
| 1933 | German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany. |
| 1956 | The Montgomery, Alabama, home of Martin Luther King Jr. was bombed during the bus boycott. No one was hurt. |
| 1968 | North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive, a wave of coordinated attacks on cities and bases across South Vietnam. |
| 1969 | The Beatles played their famous rooftop concert on top of their Apple office on Savile Row in London. |
| 1972 | On “Bloody Sunday,” British paratroopers shot 13 civil rights marchers dead in Derry, Northern Ireland. A 2010 inquiry found none of them posed a threat. |
| 2005 | Iraqis voted for a 275-seat Transitional National Assembly in the first national election after Saddam Hussein’s fall. |
| 2020 | The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. |
Born on January 30
- 1882: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. president, who led the country through the Depression and World War II.
- 1937: Vanessa Redgrave, English stage and film actress.
- 1941: Dick Cheney, U.S. defense secretary and later the 46th vice president.
- 1951: Phil Collins, English drummer and singer with Genesis and a solo hitmaker.
Keep reading
Sources
- Gandhi assassinated, History.com
- The End, Mahatma Gandhi Website (mkgandhi.org)
- Mahatma Gandhi, Britannica
- This Day in History: January 30, History.com
- The Execution of King Charles I outside the Banqueting House, Whitehall, 30 January 1649, Government Art Collection
- History of the USS Monitor, NOAA Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
- Hitler Comes to Power, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Bloody Sunday, Britannica
- Iraq: Post-Saddam National Elections, Congressional Research Service
- WHO declares Public Health Emergency on novel coronavirus, Pan American Health Organization
