Today In History: April 30

313: Licinius unifies the whole of the eastern Roman Empire under his own rule.

1250: King Louis IX of France is ransomed.

1527: Henry VIII of England and King Francis of France sign treaty of Westminster.

1563: All Jews are expelled from France by order of Charles VI.

1725: Spain withdraws from the Quadruple Alliance.

1789: George Washington is inaugurated as the first U.S. president.

1803: The United States doubles in size through the Louisiana Purchase, which was sold by France for $15 million.

1812: Louisiana is admitted into the Union as a state.

1849: Giuseppe Garabaldi, the Italian patriot and guerrilla leader, repulses a French attack on Rome.

1864: Work begins on the Dams along the Red River, which will allow Union General Nathaniel Banks’ troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.

1930: The Soviet Union proposes a military alliance with France and Great Britain.

1931: The George Washington Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opens.

1943: The British submarine HMS Seraph drops ‘the man who never was,’ a dead man the British planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.

1945: Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his bunker. Karl Donitz becomes his successor.

1968: U.S. Marines attack a division of North Vietnamese troops in the village of Dai Do.

1970: U.S. troops invade Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas.

1972: The North Vietnamese launch an invasion of the South.

1973: Nixon announces the resignation of H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and other top aides.

1975: North Vietnamese troops enter the Independence Palace of South Vietnam in Saigon ending the Vietnam War.

1980: Terrorists seize the Iranian Embassy in London.