March 30 in History

On this date 'The Incomparable' was sunk in the Baltic while, in the U.S., many years later Russian America becomes Alaska on this day. 

  • Nineteenth century painting hanging in the city hall of the German coastal town Lübeck depicting the explosion and subsequent sinking of the Mars.
  • March 30 in History
    In Sweden, the flagship Mars (a.k.a. 'The Incomparable') was sunk in 1564 in a battle with the Danish fleet at the northern tip of Öland (Sweden’s second largest island, no longer an island according to EU: Öland is no island!).

  • L-R: Robert S. Chew, William H. Seward, William Hunter, Bodisco, Eduard de Stoeckl, Charles Sumner and Frederick W. Seward signing the Alaska Treaty in the morning of March 30, 1867.
  • Internationally, this was the day of the Treaty of Paris in 1856, which ended the Crimean War where Russia lost to a coalition of England, France, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia. In effect and at least for some time, Russia was forced to restore its possessions along the Black Sea to the Ottoman Empire.

  • Chaos outside the Washington Hilton Hotel after the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy were struck by gunfire on March 30, 1981.
  • Eleven years later in 1867, USA buys Alaska, almost 600,000 square miles of land, from a financially strained Russia (at the time called Russian America) for 7.2 million USD (Two cents per acre). The Alaska Purchase was widely criticized at the time, colloquially called “Seward’s Folly” after then Secretary of State William H. Seward.

  • In 1981, also on March 30, the newly inaugurated president Ronald Reagan and several of his aids were struck by gunfire from would-be assassin John Hinckley. Reagan became the first U.S. president to survive an assassination attempt.