On this day in History: June 30
- 1520 Montezuma II is murdered as Spanish conquistadors flee the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan during the night.
- 1857 Charles Dickens reads from A Christmas Carol-his first public reading.
- 1859 Jean Francois Gravelet aka Emile Blondin, a French daredevil, becomes the first man to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
- 1934 Adolf Hitler orders the purge of his own party in the “Night of the Long Knives.”
- 1936 Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone With The Wind, is published.
- 1960 Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, opens in theaters.
- 1971 Three Soviet cosmonauts die when their spacecraft depressurizes during reentry.
- 1994 Pre-trial hearings open in LA against OJ Simpson.
- 1994 US Ice Skating Federation bars Tonya Harding for life.