01010630 This Day In History, June 30

350: Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty (see A History Of Jerusalem: Constantine and Muhammad), was defeated and killed by the forces of Magnentius.

1097: The Crusaders (see Constantine's Crusades In History And Prophecy) defeated the Turks at Dorylaeum.

1422: The Battle of Arbedo between the forces of the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons.

1520: Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor, was killed during the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

1548: The Augsburg Interim, a temporary doctrinal agreement between German Catholics and Protestants, proclaimed in May 1548 at The Diet of Augsburg, became Imperial Law (see The Holy Roman Empire Of The German Nation).

1643: The Battle of Adwalton Moor (also called Atherton Moor) in the English Civil War took place. The Royalists under the Earl of Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarians.

1690: In the War of the Grand Alliance, a combined British and Dutch fleet fought the French at the Battle of Beachy Head.

1859: Watched by 25,000 people, Charles Blondin walked across Niagara Falls from the United States to Canada on a tightrope.

1886: The first transcontinental train trip across Canada began from Montreal.

1894: London's Tower Bridge across the River Thames was officially opened.

1894: Korea declared independence from China.

1908: The "Tunguska Event" - an explosion equivalent to a 10 megaton hydrogen bomb erupted in the sky above the Tunguska River in central Siberia. With a great roar, the shock wave flattened trees over an area of several thousand square kilometers. No one was killed in the uninhabited area, although a man standing 40 miles away was knocked down unconscious by the shock wave. Seismometers around the world recorded it. The event is believed to have been caused by a comet or asteroid that shattered and exploded about 5 miles above the earth's surface.

1963: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was enthroned as Pope Paul VI.

1971: The three crew members of the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz II died on re-entry due to a drop in air pressure. They had just set a space endurance record of 570 hours, 22 minutes.

1974: Mrs. Alberta King and a church deacon were slain by a gunman in Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church where her son, the assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King, once preached.

1984: John Turner was sworn in as Canada's 17th Prime Minister.

1990: East and West Germany merged their economies, with the East adopting the Deutschemark as its currency.

1994: Following months of negotiations to ensure protection for Jerusalem's Roman Catholic shrines (see A History Of Jerusalem: Constantine and Muhammad), the decision was reached to exchange ambassadors between Israel and the Vatican (see The Temple Vessel Prophecies Today, A History Of Jerusalem: Abomination Of Desolation and What Is The Mark Of The Beast?).

1997: Britain ended 156 years of colonial rule in Hong Kong by turning control of the colony (it was the 68th colony that Britain relinquished in the 20th century alone) over to communist China. Six hours after the handover, China sent in 4,000 troops by ship, helicopter and armored vehicles.