December 30: What Happened on This Day in History (Elementary Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1853 - Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
2. 1981 - In the 39th game of his third NHL season, Wayne Gretzky scores five goals, giving him 50 on the year and setting a new NHL record previously held by Maurice Richard and Mike Bossy, who earlier had each scored 50 goals in 50 games.
3. 1993 - Israel and Vatican City establish diplomatic relations.
4. 2005 - Tropical Storm Zeta forms in the open Atlantic Ocean, tying the record for the latest tropical cyclone ever to form in the North Atlantic basin.
5. 2011 - Owing to a change of time zone the day is skipped in Samoa and Tokelau.
6. Famous Birthdays: William Croft (English composer), John Milne (English seismologist and geologist), Rudyard Kipling (English author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate), Helge Ingstad (Norwegian explorer), John N. Bahcall (American physicist, co-developed the Hubble Space Telescope)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: December 29

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: December 31

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.