1930 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Herbert Hoover
• Vice President: Charles Curtis
• Chief Justice: William Howard Taft , Charles Evans Hughes
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nicholas Longworth
• Senate Majority Leader: James Eli Watson
• Congress: 71st

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 6
• *The first diesel engine automobile trip is completed.
• *The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S. and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.
• January 13 – The Mickey Mouse comic strip makes its first appearance.
• January 19–23 – Watsonville riots
• February 18
• *Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in an airplane, and also the first cow to be milked in an airplane.
• *While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence of Pluto, a heavenly body considered a planet until 2006, when the term "planet" was officially defined. Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
• March 6 – The first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye go on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• March 31 – The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next 40 years.

  April–June

• April 6 – Jimmy Dewar invents Hostess Twinkies.
• April 21 – A fire in the Ohio Penitentiary near Columbus kills 320 people.
• April 22 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
• April 28 – The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.
• May 10 – The National Pan-Hellenic Council is founded in Washington, D.C..
• May 14 – Carlsbad Caverns National Park is established in New Mexico.
• May 15 – Aboard a Boeing tri-motor, Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.
• May 20 – The Chrysler Building is completed, becoming the world's first man-made structure taller than.
• May 30 – Sergei Eisenstein arrives in Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures; they part ways by October.
• June 9 – Chicago Tribune journalist Jake Lingle is shot in Chicago, Illinois. Newspapers promise $55,000 reward for information. Lingle is later found to have had contacts with organized crime.
• June 14 – An act of Congress establishes the Federal Bureau of Narcotics as a replacement for the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.
• June 17 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.

  July–September

• July 4 – Nation of Islam founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad in Detroit.
• July 26 – Charles Creighton and James Hargis leave New York City for Los Angeles on a roundtrip journey, driving 11,555 km using only a reverse gear; the trip lasts the next 42 days.
• July 30 – New York City station W2XBS is put in charge of NBC broadcast engineers.
• July 31 – The radio drama The Shadow airs for the first time.
• August 6 – Judge Joseph Force Crater steps into a taxi in New York City and disappears.
• August 7 – Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. They are hanged; James Cameron survives. This will be the last recorded lynching of African Americans in the Northern United States.
• August 9 – Cartoon character Betty Boop premieres in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.
• September 8 – 3M introduces Scotch Tape.

  October–December

• October 8 - The Philadelphia Athletics defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games to 2, to win their 5th World Series Title.
• December 2 – Great Depression: U.S. President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.
• December 7 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts, broadcasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

  Undated

• A Jamaican ginger paralysis outbreak occurs across the South and Midwest.
• W9XAP in Chicago, Illinois, broadcasts the U.S. senatorial election returns, which is the first time a senatorial race, with non-stop vote tallies, is ever televised.
• 1930–1931 – Crazy Horse’s lifelong friend, He Dog, is interviewed by journalist Eleanor Hinman and Nebraska writer Mari Sandoz.
• A record drought in the eastern part of the nation sees Upper Tract, West Virginia record only of precipitation for the year – the record lowest for a calendar year in the US east of the Mississippi. Averaged over the contiguous US the twelve months from July 1930 to June 1931 remains the driest such period on record.

  Ongoing

• Lochner era
• U.S. occupation of Haiti
• Prohibition
• Great Depression
• Dust Bowl

  Births

January

• January 1 – Ty Hardin, American actor
• January 2
• * Julius La Rosa, American pop singer
• * Don Rondo, American singer
• January 3
• * Robert Loggia, American actor
• * Barbara Stuart, American actress
• * Don Shula, American football player and coach
• January 5
• * Dorothy Cotton, American civil rights activist
• * Edward Givens, United States Air Force officer, test pilot and NASA astronaut
• January 6
• * W. Wallace Cleland, American biochemist and educator
• * Charles Kalani, Jr., American wrestler and actor
• * Vic Tayback, American actor
• January 7
• * Jack Greene, American country music singer and songwriter
• * Eddie LeBaron, American football player, manager, and sportscaster
• January 8
• * Bill James, American politician
• * Doreen Wilber, American archer
• January 10 – Roy E. Disney, American film and television executive
• January 12 – Glenn Yarbrough, American singer
• January 13 – Frances Sternhagen, American actress
• January 14 – C. Arlen Beam, American judge
• January 15
• * James Millstone, American journalist and editor
• * Margaret Mary Vojtko, American linguist
• January 17
• * Dick Contino, American accordionist
• * Lucille Miller, American murderer
• January 18 – James M. Bobbitt, American chemist and professor
• January 19 – Tippi Hedren, American actress
• January 20 – Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut, Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11 and the second person to walk on the Moon
• January 22 – David Rosen, American businessman
• January 23
• * William R. Pogue, American astronaut
• * Benjamin Tatar, American actor
• January 24
• * Edward Diego Reyes, American politician
• * Rita Lakin, American screenwriter
• January 27 – Bobby Bland, African-American singer
• January 28
• * Ruth Cohen, American actress
• * Ralph Engelstad, American businessman
• January 30
• * Samuel Byck, attempts to hijack an airplane to assassinate President Richard Nixon
• * Gene Hackman, American actor and novelist
• January 31 – Al De Lory, American record producer, arranger, musician

  February

• February 2 – C. M. Newton, American basketball player, coach and administrator
• February 3 – David Edward Foley, Roman Catholic prelate
• February 4 – Jim Loscutoff, American basketball player
• February 5 - Don Goldie, American jazz trumpeter
• February 8
• * Jim Dooley, American football player and coach
• * Arlan Stangeland, American farmer and politician
• February 10
• * Anne Wexler, American political consultant and public policy advisor
• * Robert Wagner, American actor
• February 12
• * Bert Clark, American football player and coach
• * Arlen Specter, American politician
• February 13 – Frank Buxton, American actor, television writer, author, and television director
• February 14 – Bernie Papy Jr., American politician
• February 15
• * Sara Jane Moore, attempted assassin of President Gerald Ford
• * Robert Edward Mulvee, Roman Catholic Prelate
• February 16 – Noah Weinberg American-born Israeli rabbi, founder of Aish HaTorah
• February 17 – Roger Craig, American baseball player, coach and manager
• February 19 – John Frankenheimer, American film director
• February 22
• * James McGarrell, American painter
• * Marni Nixon, American vocalist
• February 24
• * Joan Diener, American theater actress and singer
• * Barbara Jo Lawrence, American actress and model
• * Anita Steckel, American feminist artist
• February 25
• * Roger A. Madigan, American politician
• * Delford M. Smith, American aviator
• February 26 – Robert Francis, American actor
• February 27
• * Barney Glaser, American sociologist
• * Peter Stone, American writer
• * Joanne Woodward, American actress
• February 28 – Leon Cooper, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

  March

• March 2
• * John Cullum, American actor and singer
• * Tom Wolfe, American author, journalist
• March 5 – Del Crandall, baseball player
• March 6 – Allison Hayes, American actress
• March 9 – Ornette Coleman, American jazz saxophonist
• March 13 – Liz Anderson, American country music singer, songwriter
• March 16 – Olen Lovell Burrage, American native businessman
• March 17 – James Irwin, American astronaut
• March 18 – Adam Maida, American Roman Catholic prelate
• March 19 – Wayne Fitzgerald, American film title designer
• March 20 – Willie Thrower, American football player
• March 21 – James Coco, American actor
• March 22
• * Derek Bok, American lawyer and academic
• * Pat Robertson, American televangelist, motivational speaker, author and television host
• * Stephen Sondheim, American composer, lyricist
• March 24 – Steve McQueen, American actor
• March 25 – John Keel, American journalist, urologist
• March 26 – Sandra Day O'Connor, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
• March 27 – James Tayoun, American politician
• March 28
• * Robert Ashley, American composer
• * Jerome Isaac Friedman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• * Joe Fortunato, American football player
• March 30 – John Astin, American actor

  April

• April 1
• * Betsy Jones-Moreland, American actress
• * Grace Lee Whitney, American actress
• April 3 – Lawton Chiles, American politician
• April 10 – Dolores Huerta, American Labor leader and activist
• April 11
• * Nicholas F. Brady, American politician
• * Anton LaVey, Satanist
• April 14
• * Bradford Dillman, American actor, author
• * Arnold Burns, American lawyer
• * Jay Robinson, American actor
• April 19
• * Curtis Roosevelt, American writer
• * Dick Sargent, American actor, gay activist
• April 21 – Donald J. Tyson, American businessman
• April 23 – Alan Oppenheimer, American actor
• April 24 – Richard Donner, American film director and producer
• April 28
• * James Baker, former United States Secretary of State
• * Carolyn Jones, American actress
• * Richard C. Sarafian, American film-television director, writer and actor

  May

• May 1
• * Ethel Ayler, American actress
• * Ollie Matson, American sprinter
• * Richard Riordan, American politician, 39th Mayor of Los Angeles
• * Little Walter, African-American blues singer, musician, and songwriter
• May 3
• * Bob Havens, American musician
• * Edward Nixon, American entrepreneur
• May 4
• * Lois de Banzie, UK-born American actress
• * Katherine Jackson, Jackson Family matriarch
• * Roberta Peters, American soprano
• May 5 – Michael J. Adams, American aviator, aeronautical engineer, and astronaut
• May 6
• * George Tarasovic, American football player
• * David Carpenter, American serial killer
• May 7 – Babe Parilli, American football player
• May 10
• * Adam Darius, American dancer, choreographer
• * George E. Smith, American physicist, engineer and Nobel Prize laureate
• * Pat Summerall, American football player, broadcaster
• May 11
• * Bud Ekins, American stuntman
• * William Honan, American journalist and author
• May 12 – Tom Umphlett, American baseball player and manager
• May 13 – Mike Gravel, American politician
• May 15 – Jasper Johns, American painter
• May 16 – Carolyn Conwell, American actress
• May 19 – Lorraine Hansberry, African-American playwright
• May 22
• * John Barth, American writer
• * Harvey Milk, American politician, San Francisco gay rights activist
• * Tiny Topsy, African-American rhythm and blues singer
• May 23 – Charles Kelman, ophthalmologist
• May 27
• * Bruce Halle, American businessman
• * William S. Sessions, American civil servant and judge
• May 28 – Frank Drake, American radio astronomer, pioneer in SETI
• May 29 – Gerry Lenfest, American lawyer, media executive and philanthropist
• May 30 – Clint Eastwood, American actor, filmmaker, musician and political figure

  June

• June 1 – Pat Corley, American actor
• June 2
• * Pete Conrad, American astronaut
• * Bob Lillis, American baseball player, coach and manager
• * Stewart and Cyril Marcus, American gynecologists
• June 3 – Marion Zimmer Bradley, American writer
• June 4 – Morgana King, American jazz singer and actress
• June 8 – Richard Paul Matsch, federal judge
• June 10 – Grace Mirabella, American editor of Vogue
• June 11 – Charles B. Rangel, African-American politician
• June 12
• * Jim Nabors, American actor, musician and comedian
• * Dutch Rennert, baseball umpire
• June 14 – Charles McCarry, American novelist
• June 16 – Thyrsa Frazier Svager, African American mathematician and academic
• June 19
• * James O. Mason, American medical doctor and public health administrator
• * Gena Rowlands, American actress
• * Diana Sowle, American actress
• June 21 – John E. McCarthy, Roman Catholic bishop
• June 22
• * Fred Benners, American football player
• * Roy Drusky, American country music singer, songwriter
• June 23 – Ben Speer, American singer, musician, music publisher and record company executive
• June 24
• * Herb Klein, American businessman, attorney and politician
• * Peter Mazzaferro, American football coach
• June 25 – James Sedin, American ice hockey player
• June 26 – Jackie Fargo, American wrestler, trainer
• June 27 – Ross Perot, American computer billionaire, politician
• June 28 – Maureen Howard, American writer, editor and lecturer
• June 29
• * Robert Evans, American producer
• * Edward Johnson III, American investor, businessman
• * Viola Léger, Acadian-Canadian actress and politician
• June 30
• * Ben Atchley, American politician
• * W. C. Gorden, American football player, coach
• * Isaac Levi, American philosopher
• * Thomas Sowell, American economist, author

  July

• July 1
• * Jerome A. Cohen, professor of law at New York University School of Law
• * Frank Joranko, former football, baseball player, coach
• July 2
• * Pete Burnside, professional baseball player
• * Jane Moffet, utility player
• * Magdalen Redman, professional baseball player
• * Randy Starr, dentist, singer and songwriter
• * Joe Scudero, American football safety
• July 3 – Ronnell Bright, jazz pianist
• July 4
• * George Steinbrenner, businessman, baseball team owner
• * Jack Van Mark, politician
• July 5
• * Tommy Cook, actor
• * Billy Howton, American football player
• * Donald Wilhelms, United States Geological Survey geologist
• July 7
• * Sherwin Carlquist, American botanist, photographer
• * Theodore Edgar McCarrick, American Roman Catholic Cardinal
• July 8
• * Chris Adams, author and retired United States Air Force officer
• * Jim Mooney, professional basketball player
• * Frank Slay, songwriter, record producer
• * Jerry Vale, singer and actor
• July 9 – Buddy Bregman, musical arranger
• July 10 – Pete Carril, basketball coach
• July 11
• * Dick Beyer, professional wrestler
• * Harold Bloom, literary critic
• * Ezra Vogel, professor
• July 13 – Dick Bunt, basketball player
• July 14 – Polly Bergen, American actress
• July 15 – Betty Wagoner, American professional baseball player
• July 16
• * Michael Bilirakis, politician
• * Bert Rechichar, American football defensive back, kicker
• July 18 – Sammy Masters, singer-songwriter
• July 20 – Ronnie MacGilvray, American professional basketball player
• July 29 – Paul Taylor, choreographer
• July 30
• * A. D. King, civil rights activist and minister
• * Gus Triandos, baseball player

  August

• August 2 – Carolyn Warner, American politician
• August 5
• * Neil Armstrong, American astronaut, mission commander on Apollo 11 and the first person to walk on the Moon
• * Damita Jo DeBlanc, American actress, comedian, singer
• August 6 – Abbey Lincoln, American singer
• August 8 – Joan Mondale, American socialite, Second Lady of the United States
• August 10 – Fakir Musafar, American performance artist, body modification pioneer
• August 13
• * Don Ho, American singer, musician
• * Bob Wiesler, American pitcher
• * Jack Daugherty, American musician
• * Wilmer Mizell, American left-handed pitcher
• August 14
• * W. Brantley Harvey Jr., American lawyer and politician
• * Earl Weaver, American professional baseball player, manager
• August 15 – Selma James, American-born feminist writer
• August 16
• * Robert Culp, American actor
• * Frank Gifford, American football player
• August 21 – Frank Perry, American stage director and filmmaker
• August 23 – Mickey McMahan, big band musician
• August 28 – Ben Gazzara, American actor
• August 30 – Warren Buffett, American billionaire entrepreneur

  September

• September 2 – Rita Riggs, American costume designer
• September 4 – Norman Dorsen, American civil rights activist
• September 7 – Sonny Rollins, African-American jazz saxophonist
• September 9 – Frank Lucas, African-American drug trafficker
• September 11 – Cathryn Damon, American actress
• September 13 – Mary Baumgartner, American female professional baseball player
• September 16 – Anne Francis, American actress
• September 17
• * David Huddleston, American actor
• * Edgar Mitchell, American astronaut
• * Thomas P. Stafford, American astronaut
• September 23 – Ray Charles, African-American singer, musician and actor
• September 24 – John Young, American astronaut
• September 25 – Shel Silverstein, American poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter and children's book author
• September 26 – Philip Bosco, American actor
• September 28
• * Tommy Collins, American country music singer-songwriter
• * Johnny "Country" Mathis, American country music singer-songwriter
• September 29 – Billy Strange, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

  October

• October 1
• * Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, American Episcopal priest, activist and rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, California
• * Erica Yohn, American actress
• October 10
• * Doris Payne, American jewel thief
• * Adlai Stevenson III, American politician
• October 11
• * Bill Fischer, American baseball player
• * Sam Johnson, American politician
• October 17
• * Robert Atkins, American nutritionist
• * Nick Chickillo, American football player
• October 18 – Frank Carlucci, American politician
• October 19 – Jody Lawrance, American actress
• October 24
• * Big Bopper, American disc jockey, singer and songwriter
• * Jack Angel, American voice actor
• October 29 – Natalie Sleeth, American composer
• October 30 – Clifford Brown, American jazz trumpeter
• October 31 – Michael Collins, American astronaut

  November

• November 3 – D. James Kennedy, American evangelist
• November 4 – Dick MacPherson, American football coach
• November 6
• * Derrick Bell, American law professor
• * Wilma Briggs, American female baseball player
• November 7 – Rudy Boschwitz, American politician
• November 11 – Mildred Dresselhaus, American scientist, educator
• November 12 – Bob Crewe, American singer, songwriter, manager, and producer
• November 13
• * Richard A. Falk, American international professor
• * Fred R. Harris, American politician
• November 14 – Ed White, American astronaut
• November 16 – Paul Foytack, American baseball player
• November 17 – Bob Mathias, American athlete
• November 20 – Curly Putman, American songwriter
• November 22 – Owen Garriott, American astronaut
• November 23 – Bill Brock, American politician
• November 24 – Bob Friend, American baseball player
• November 25 – Clarke Scholes, American freestyle swimmer
• November 30 – G. Gordon Liddy, American organizer of the Watergate burglaries

  December

• December 2 – Gary Becker, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
• December 4 – Jim Hall, American jazz guitarist
• December 5 – Warren Spannaus, American politician
• December 11 – Jim Williams, American antique dealer, preservationist
• December 31
• * Odetta, African-American singer and civil rights activist
• * Jaime Escalante, American high school math teacher

  Deaths

• January 24 – Rebecca Latimer Felton, U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1922
• February 7 – Jennie Anderson Froiseth, women's rights campaigner
• February 14 – Fred Dubois, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1891 to 1897 and from 1901 to 1907
• February 27 – George Haven Putnam, author and publisher
• March 8 – William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and 10th Chief Justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930
• March 11 – Alma Webster Hall Powell, opera singer, suffragist, and inventor
• March 31 – James Marshall Head, politician and businessman
• April 7 – Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo, politician
• May 2 – Daniel V. Asay, iceboat racer
• May 18 – Gottfried Blocklinger, admiral
• July 2 – Anders Randolf, silent film actor
• September 5 – Robert Means Thompson, naval officer and president of the American Olympic Association
• September 21 – John T. Dorrance, chemist
• September 24 – William A. MacCorkle, lawyer, Governor of West Virginia
• September 28 – Daniel Guggenheim, mining magnate and philanthropist
• October 2 – Gordon Stewart Northcott, serial killer
• October 15 – Herbert Henry Dow, industrial chemist
• December 9 – Rube Foster, Negro league baseball player
• December 14 – F. Richard Jones, director
• December 16 – Herman Lamm, bank robber