What happened on 30 April?

11 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1789 Presidency of George Washington First US President; set precedents incl. the two-term tradition and Cabinet.
2. 1945 Death of Hitler / Fall of Berlin Hitler shoots himself in the Führerbunker; Soviets raise the flag over the Reichstag.
3. 1803 Louisiana Purchase Napoleon sells the vast Louisiana territory to the United States, doubling the young republic's size overnight.
4. 1975 Fall of Saigon North Vietnamese tanks crash through the gates of the Presidential Palace; iconic helicopter evacuations from the US embassy roof.
5. 1897 Thomson discovers the electron J.J. Thomson identifies the electron.
6. 1993 World Wide Web released into the public domain CERN places the Web's underlying software in the public domain, royalty-free, igniting the explosion of the internet age.
7. 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville Lee's tactical masterpiece against a Union force more than twice his size, but at the cost of Stonewall Jackson — mortally wounded by his own pickets after his flanking march. The
8. 1904 Japan crosses the Yalu At the river between Korea and Manchuria, Japan's First Army throws back a Russian force in the war's first major land battle — an Asian army beating a European one in open battle.
9. 1849 Defence of the Roman Republic Garibaldi holds the Janiculum for two months against a French army sent to restore the Pope, then leads a fighting retreat across Italy in which his wife Anita dies.
10. 1939 New York World's Fair The 'World of Tomorrow' fair showcases television, superhighways and a streamlined future on the eve of war.
11. 1902 Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande Debussy's only completed opera, after Maeterlinck's symbolist play, divides its Opéra-Comique audience with its hushed, half-spoken lines and dreamlike orchestra — and breaks Wagne