On Dec. 30, 1850, seismologist and geologist John Milne, inventor of the seismograph, was born in Liverpool, England.
In 1852 future U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes married Lucy Ware Webb in Cincinnati.
In 1853 the United States bought about 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.
In 1865 author Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay.
In 1873 Alfred Smith, four-time governor of New York who ran for president in 1928, was born in New York.
In 1879 Ramana Maharshi, the Hindu philosopher and yogi, was born Venkataraman Aiyer in Madurai, India.
In 1894 suffragist Amelia Jenks Bloomer, whose short skirt and baggy trousers became known as “bloomers,” died in Council Bluffs, Iowa; she was 76.
In 1903 about 600 people died when fire broke out at the recently opened Iroquois Theater in Chicago.
In 1911 Sun Yat-sen was elected the first president of the Republic of China.
In 1922 Vladimir Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In 1928 musician Bo Diddley was born in McComb, Miss.
In 1935 Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was born in New York.
In 1936 the United Auto Workers union staged its first “sit-down” strike, at the Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Mich.
In 1940, California’s first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, was officially opened.
In 1944 King George II of Greece proclaimed a regency to rule his country, virtually renouncing the throne.
In 1946 singer and poet Patti Smith was born in Chicago.
In 1947 King Michael of Romania agreed to abdicate but charged he was being forced off the throne by Communists.
In 1948 the Cole Porter musical “Kiss Me, Kate!” opened on Broadway.
In 1972 the United States halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.
In 1975 golfer Tiger Woods was born in Cypress, Calif.
In 1978 Ohio State University fired Woody Hayes as its football coach, one day after Hayes punched Clemson University player Charlie Bauman during the Gator Bowl after Bauman intercepted an Ohio State pass.
In 1988 President Ronald Reagan and President-elect George H.W. Bush were subpoenaed to testify as defense witnesses in the pending Iran-contra trial of Col. Oliver North, a National Security Council staff member. (The subpoenas subsequently were quashed.)
In 1993 Israel and the Vatican agreed to recognize one another.
In 1994 a gunman walked into two suburban Boston abortion clinics and opened fire, killing two employees and wounding five other people. (John C. Salvi III later was convicted of murder; he committed suicide in prison.)
In 1995 a U.S. military policeman, Martin John Begosh, became the first American injured in NATO’s fledgling Bosnia peace mission when his Humvee hit an anti-tank mine.
In 1997 armed men massacred 412 people in four mountain villages in Algeria.
In 1999 former Beatle George Harrison fought off a knife-wielding intruder who broke into his mansion west of London and stabbed him in the chest. (Michael Abram later was acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity.)
In 2000, in the Philippines, 22 people were killed in five bombings in the Manila area. Also in 2000 Hollywood screenwriter Julius Epstein, who co-wrote the script for “Casablanca,” died in Los Angeles; he was 91.
In 2003 the Bush administration announced it was banning the sale of ephedra and urged consumers to immediately stop using the herbal stimulant linked to 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes. Also in 2003 author John Gregory Dunne died in New York; he was 71.
In 2004 a fire broke out at a nightclub in Buenos Aires, killing 194 people. Also in 2004 bandleader and clarinetist Artie Shaw died in Thousand Oaks, Calif.; he was 94.
