This Day in History

The History Channel updates visitors on historic events throughout world history with “This Day in History.” There were a number of notables for April 30:

1789: President George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States in New York City and delivered the nation’s first inaugural address.

1803: The land deal between the United States and Napoleonic France known as the “Louisiana Purchase” was concluded. The purchase doubled the size of the U.S. at the cost of $15 million. The Louisiana Territory “comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other pockets of land already controlled by the United States.”

1945: Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin days before Nazi Germany’s formal surrender to Allied forces. Hitler’s Third Reich was proclaimed to last 1,000 years but collapsed after a dozen under Nazi rule.

1948: Organization of American States (OAS) was officially established with the United States and twenty Latin America nations signed on.

1975: South Vietnam surrendered to communist forces.

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October 6, 2008