Today in History: September 30

1399: Henry IV becomes the first English king since the Conquest 333 years earlier to make his coronation address in English.

1882: The Appleton Edison Electric Co. opens the first U.S. hydroelectric plant, on the Fox River at Appleton, Wisconsin.

1913: Inventor Rudolf Diesel, en route to a meeting with English manufacturers interested in licensing his engine, disappears mysteriously from the S.S. Dresden at Antwerp; his body will be found floating in the river.  Authorities say “suicide,” his family says “murder.”

1930: The first episode of Death Valley Days airs on NBC Radio.  It’s created and written by an advertising woman who’s never seen Death Valley, but thought up the idea as a great vehicle for her client’s product, 20 Mule Team Borax.

1935: A new musical, Porgy and Bess, flops badly on its opening at Boston’s Colonial Theater.

1938: The League of Nations unanimously outlaws the intentional bombing of civilians.  The rule will be honored more in the breach than in the observance.

1947: The first baseball World Series is broadcast.  Gillette and Ford Motor Co. pay $65,000 for the sponsorship rights.

1953: President Eisenhower appoints California Governor Earl Warren to be Chief Justice of the United States.

1970: Actress Shirley Maclaine makes her mark on casebook history when the California Supreme Court comes down with Parker v. Twentieth Century-Fox.