April 30, 1897: J.J. Thomson announced discovery of the electron.
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On April 30, 1897, English physicist J.J. Thomson announced that he had discovered the electron, which helped revolutionize the knowledge of atomic structure; he later was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
April 30, 1777 was the birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, who is widely is considered the world’s greatest mathematician.
Camerone Day is celebrated on April 30th every year — the Foreign Legion’s most important holiday. On the 30 of April 1863 the French Foreign Legion fought for over 10 hours with a vastly-larger Mexican Army contingent. This battle is still celebrated by the Foreign Legion as the Battle of Camarone. (Veracruz, Mexico) A small infantry unit of only 65 men was attacked and besieged by a force that eventually reached 3,000 Mexican infantry and cavalry. The conduct of the Legion, who overwhelmingly outnumbered, refused to surrender, killing and injuring hundreds of enemy troops before finally succumbing, led to a certain mystique, and the battle of Camarone (Camarón) became synonymous with bravery and a fight-to-the-death attitude.
Today is the birthday of sci-fi novelist Larry Niven (born April 30, 1938). Along with Jerry Pournelle, he co-authored the survivalist classic Lucifer’s Hammer.
April 30th is also the birthday of software engineer Ed Yourdon, who was born in 1944. He passed away in 2016.
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There are several interesting new listings over at SurvivalRealty:
Today we present another entry for Round 112 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
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More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 112 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.