July 30 is the 211th day of the year (212th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 154 days remain until the end of the year.
1502 – Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage.
1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first Colonial European representative assembly in the Americas, the Virginia General Assembly, convenes for the first time.
1676 – Nathaniel Bacon issues the 'Declaration of the People of Virginia', beginning Bacon's Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.
1729 – Founding of Baltimore, Maryland.
1733 – The first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States is constituted in Massachusetts.
1863 – American Indian Wars: Representatives of the United States and tribal leaders including Chief Pocatello (of the Shoshone) sign the Treaty of Box Elder.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of the Crater: Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
1865 – The steamboat Brother Jonathan sinks off the coast of Crescent City, California, killing 225 passengers, the deadliest shipwreck on the Pacific Coast of the U.S. at the time.
1866 – Armed Confederate veterans in New Orleans riot against a meeting of Radical Republicans, killing 48 people and injuring another 100.
1871 – The Staten Island Ferry Westfield's boiler explodes, killing over 85 people.
1916 – The Black Tom explosion in New York Harbor kills four, damages the Statue of Liberty and destroys some $20,000,000 worth of military goods destined for the Allies in WWI.
1932 – Premiere of Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short 1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen. Most die during the following four days, until an aircraft notices the survivors.
1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto.
1965 – U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. president Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.
1971 – Apollo program: On Apollo 15, David Scott and James Irwin in the Apollo Lunar Module Falcon land on the Moon with the first Lunar Rover.
1974 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of the United States.
1975 – American labor union leader and Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.
1990 – Ian Gow, Conservative Member of Parliament, is assassinated at his home by the IRA in a car bombing after he assured the group that the British government would never surrender to them.
2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.