Today in History: July 30

1619: The Virginia Company of London convenes the first meeting the the House of Burgesses at Jamestown, the first legislative assembly in the New World.

1718: William Penn, founder and first owner of the colony of Pennsylvania, dies at Ruscombe, Berkshire.

1729: A new port town is founded on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, named for the proprietary governor of Maryland, Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore.

1857: Economist Thorstein (Theory of the Leisure Class) Veblen, the man who came up with “conspicuous consumption,” is born at Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.

1863: The father of modern mass production, Henry Ford, is born at Springwells Township (now Dearborn), Michigan.

1898: Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen, the Iron Chancellor who took his law degree from Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin in 1835, dies at Friedrichsruh in the German Empire.

1930: At Montevideo, Uruguay beats Argentina 4-2 to win the first soccer World Cup.

1930: Economist Thomas Sowell is born in North Carolina.

1934: Caro Davis and her husband will get the money after all, as the California Supreme Court decides Davis v. Jacoby.

1956: President Eisenhower signs a joint resolution of Congress making “In God We Trust” the official motto of the United States.

1990: The first car rolls off the assembly line at General Motors’ new high-tech Saturn division.

2003: After more than a half-century of production, the last old-style Volkswagen beetle — Hitler’s “people’s car” — rolls off a production line in Mexico.