September 30

September 30

September 30

Feast day of St. Ursus (? - ca. 303). St. Ursus was a Roman Legionnaire who had converted to Christianity. According to the legends of the saints he was tortured attempting to force him to worship pagan idols. Finally he was beheaded. He is associated with St. Maurice and Solothurn, Switzerland where he was put to death. The chapel of St. Peter stands at the place in Solothurn where St. Ursus died. His designation as a saint predates the formal practice of canonization by a Pope. His feast day is September 30.

September 30

Feast day of St. Victorvon Solothurn ( ? - ca. 303). St. Victor was a Christian Roman soldier. Along with St. Ursus and other Christians he was martyred after torture, refusing to worship pagan idols. His remains were lost during the period of the reformation. His designation as a saint predates the formal practice of canonization by a Pope. His feast day is September 30. He is especially venerated in Basel, Chur, Freiburg, St. Gallen and Sitten.

September 29/30, 1938

Munich Accord giving Germany the Sudetenland (Chamberlain: "Peace in our times.") In 1938 amid growing concern about Adolf Hitler's aims, the British prime minister, Nevil Chamberlain traveled to Munich to try to make a deal with Hitler. It was there on the 29th and 30th of September, 1938 that Hitler and Chamberlain signed the Munich Accord. Chamberlain returned to London with the paper announcing that he had secured "Peace in our time" with the compromises made at Munich. Hitler viewed it as a green light to take over Czechoslovakia and prepare for his next conquest.

September 30, 1452

Johann Guttenberg prints his first book, the Bible, at his workshop in Mainz, Germany.

September 30, 1791

The first performance of Mozart's Opera, Die Zauberflöte is given in Vienna.

September 30, 1811

Birth of Maria Luise Augusta Katharina in Weimar, Germany. She became the empress of the German Reich in 1871 as the wife of Wilhelm I. Her son became Emperor Friedrich III.

September 30, 1857

Birth of Hermann Sudermann in Matziken, East Prussia (now in Lithuania). Sudermann was one of the leading writers of the Naturalist period of literature. Noted works by Sudermann include Frau Sorge, Die Ehre, Heimat, Es lebe das Leben and Der gute Ruf.

September 30, 1882

Birth of Hans Geiger in Neustadt an der Haardt, Germany. A physicist, he invented the Geiger counter. He studied at the University of Erlangen. He was later at the University of Manchester, England. In 1912 he accepted a position at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin where he did research on atomic structure. He then became then a professor at the University of Kiel, the University of Tübingen and the Technische Hochschule in Berlin.

September 30, 1882

Birth of Johann Jakob Herzog in Erlangen, Germany. A Protestant theologian at the Universities of Halle and Erlangen, he edited the standard work on Protestant theology, Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche.

September 30, 1928

Death of Ludwig Pastor in Innsbruck, Austria. Pastor who was a professor of history at the University of Innsbruck and later the Austrian ambassador to the Vatican. Pastor's major work was the 16 volume Geschichte der Päpste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters (1886-1933).

September 30, 1943

Birth of Johann Deisenhofer in Zusamaltheim, Germany. A biochemist, Deisenhofer won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988 for determining the structure of those proteins needed for photosynthesis. He did research at the Max Planck Institute in Martinsried, Germany until 1987 and then went to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Dallas, Texas.

September 30, 1946

At the Nürnberg War Crimes Trials, Von Ribbentrop and Goering are sentenced to death.

September 30, 1949

Last flight of the Berlin Airlift. Flights had continued for some time after the end of the blockade to build a store in Berlin in case of further difficulties. The airlift had totaled 277,000 flights.

September 30, 1953

Death of Ernst Reuter in Apenrade, Germany. Reuter was the Mayor of West Berlin during the Blockade (1948-1949) and until his death.

September 30, 1985

Death of Herbert Bayer in Montecito, California (born in Haag, Austria). Bayer was an advertising designer. He trained and worked at the Bauhaus. He was an art director with Vogue magazine. He immigrated to the United States in 1938. In 1946 he became the chair of the department of design of the Container Corporation of America. He also worked as design consultant for Aspen Development.

September 30, 1989

6,000 East Germans who have sought asylum at the West German embassy in Prague are allowed to leave to West Germany.

September 30, 2007

The German woman soccer team defeats Brasil and is for the second time the world champion.