| 30 January 1522 | Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Habsburg Monarchy, Tirol, Württemberg, Germany [political events] | The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V cedes to his brother, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the Tirol, Württemberg, and the Habsburg possessions in southwest Germany, and confirms his grant of Austria of April 1521 by the Convention of Brussels. |
| 30 January 1592 | Papal States, Italy [political events] | Ippolito Aldobrandini becomes Pope Clement VIII, succeeding Innocent IX who died on 30 December 1591. |
| 30 January 1648 | Spain, United Netherlands, France, Spanish Netherlands [treaties] | Following the French capture of Dunkirk and the advance of French forces into the northern Spanish Netherlands, a separate peace is signed between Spain and the United Netherlands at Münster in the Holy Roman Empire, thereby ending the alliance between France and the Dutch. The treaty thwarts the French chief minister Cardinal Jules Mazarin's plan of securing possession of the entire Spanish Netherlands and also secures the future commercial dominance of Amsterdam by providing for the closure of the River Scheldt, the main water route into Antwerp, the Dutch city's trading rival in northwestern Europe. |
| 30 January 1649 | Great Britain, Ireland [crime and punishment] | Following the beheading of King Charles I of Great Britain and Ireland for being a ‘tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy of the people’ in the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, London, England, the prince of Wales, in exile in The Hague, United Netherlands, takes the title Charles II. |
| 30 January 1649 | Great Britain, Ireland [births and deaths] | Charles I, king of Great Britain and Ireland 1625–49, whose authoritarian rule provoked the English Civil Wars (1642–51), is executed in London, England (48). |
| 30 January 1667 | Russia, Poland [treaties] | The Truce of Andrussovo is signed by Russia and Poland, thereby ending the Thirteen Years' War. Russia gives up many of the gains made in the Treaty of Vilna but retains Smolensk, Kiev, and the east bank of the River Dnieper. Both countries commit themselves to a joint defence against the Ottoman Turks. |
| 30 January 1862 | Sweden, USA [ships and shipping] | The Swedish-born US engineer John Ericsson's ironclad warship Monitor is launched. Steam-powered and propeller-driven, and with an armoured revolving gun turret, its design sets the pattern for future warships. |
| 30 January 1879 | France [elections] | Following Republican gains in the senatorial elections, President Marie-Edme-Patrice-Maurice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, resigns and François-Paul-Jules Grévy, a moderate Republican, is elected president of France. |
| 30 January 1882 | USA [births and deaths] | Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US statesman, thirty-second president of the USA 1933–45 (re-elected three times), a Democrat, born in Hyde Park, New York (–1945). |
| 30 January 1902 | Japan, United Kingdom [treaties] | Britain qualifies its isolationist foreign policy by signing a treaty with Japan to safeguard their common interests in China and Korea. Under the terms of the treaty, in the event of Britain or Japan being at war with a foreign power in East Asia, the other will maintain strict neutrality, but shall assist its ally if a second foreign power should join the first. |
| 30 January 1933 | Germany [administration] | The German president, Paul von Hindenburg, appoints the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, as chancellor. His cabinet includes only two other Nazis, Hermann Goering and Wilhelm Frick. Franz von Papen is vice chancellor and Constantin von Neurath foreign minister. |
| 30 January 1948 | USA [births and deaths] | Orville Wright, US pioneer of aviation who, with his brother Wilbur, was the first to achieve sustained powered flight, dies in Dayton, Ohio (76). |
| 30 January 1948 | India [births and deaths] | Mahatma Gandhi (honorific name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), leader of the nationalist movement to free India from British rule, assassinated in Delhi, India (78). |
| 30 January–29 February 1968 | North Vietnam, South Vietnam [Vietnam War (1954–75)] | The Vietcong launches the Tet offensive against South Vietnamese cities. |
| 30 January 1972 | Northern Ireland [political events] | British troops shoot dead 13 civilians in Northern Ireland when violence erupts at a civil-rights march in the Bogside, Londonderry. The day is described as ‘Bloody Sunday’ by Labour members of the British Parliament. |
| 30 January 1972 | Pakistan [political events] | Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth in protest at Britain's plans to recognize Bangladesh as an independent nation. |
