August 30

1844: Francis Baily, who studied the solar eclipse phenomenon of Baily's Beads, died. 1871: British Nobel Prize winner Sir Ernest Rutherford, who discovered alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma radiation, was born. 1907: John Mauchly, co-inventor of the ENIAC computer, was born. 1914: The first bombing of Paris by a German airplane occurred. 1929: General Electric delivered to Colonel E.H. Green the first commercial hybrid auto that used both gasoline and electric power. 1940: Sir J.J. Thomson, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on cathode rays, died. 1963: The Hot Line communications link between the White House and the Kremlin became operational. 1983: Guion Bluford Jr. became the first black American astronaut to travel in space, flying aboard the shuttle Challenger. 1985: My son, Philip, was born; he is on track for a commission into the USMC after graduation from UNCG. 1993: "The Late Show with David Letterman" premiered on CBS. 1994: The largest U.S. defense contractor was created when the Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations agreed to a merger. 2004: Astronomer Fred Whipple, who proposed the "dirty snowball" model for comets, died.