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October 30 in History

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The Five Days Donora Couldn't Breathe

October 30, 1948

The Five Days Donora Couldn't Breathe

A mill town in a river bowl spent five days choking on its own air while the company insisted nothing was wrong. The twenty people who died were told it was just the weather, and the law written over their graves still decides what the rest of us breathe.

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Also on this day

More that happened on October 30

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  1. 1485Henry VII was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey, formally establishing the reign of the Tudor dynasty.
  2. 1905Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, promising basic civil liberties and an elected national parliament across Russia.
  3. 1918Representatives of the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros aboard a British battleship, ending Middle Eastern hostilities in World War I.
  4. 1922Benito Mussolini led his armed Fascist blackshirts into Rome, securing appointment as prime minister of Italy without armed resistance.
  5. 1938Orson Welles directed and narrated a radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, causing widespread alarm among American listeners.
  6. 1947Delegates from twenty-three nations signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in Geneva to boost international commerce.
  7. 1961The Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya, producing the largest man-made nuclear explosion in history.
  8. 1973Officials opened the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, providing the first permanent roadway connection between Europe and Asia.
  9. 1974Muhammad Ali knocked out undefeated champion George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, to reclaim the world heavyweight boxing championship.
  10. 1995Voters in Quebec narrowly rejected a referendum proposing political sovereignty and independence from the Canadian federation.
  11. 2005The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche was reconsecrated in Germany, sixty years after being destroyed by Allied wartime bombing.

Chosen from the October 30 pages of HISTORY, HistoryNet and OnThisDay.com, retold in our own words.