December 30 Birthday
On December 30, 1922, the Soviet Union was formally established. The USSR initially comprised four republics — Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasian Federation. It would grow to fifteen republics. The Soviet Union lasted sixty-nine years. At its dissolution in 1991, it covered 8.6 million square miles — one-sixth of the Earth's land surface — and contained 290 million people. It had the largest army, the largest nuclear arsenal, and the largest economy outside the capitalist world. Its collapse was sudden — in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; in 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time. Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006, by hanging at a military base in Baghdad. He had been convicted of crimes against humanity for the 1982 killing of 148 Shia villagers. His execution was videoed on a phone and leaked. In the video, Hussein is calm and defiant. His last words: "There is no god but Allah." The execution took place during Eid al-Adha, which Sunni Muslims considered an insult. Rudyard Kipling, born this day in 1865, was born in Bombay and sent to England at five. He lived with a foster family who mistreated him — an experience he described in "Baa Baa, Black Sheep." He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 at forty-two — the youngest ever. His son John was killed in World War I at eighteen. Kipling wrote the epitaph for the war dead: "Their Name Liveth for Evermore.". People born on December 30 fall under the zodiac sign of Capricorn. The birthstone is Tanzanite and the birth flower is Holly. Historical events on December 30 include 1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics formally established, 2006: Saddam Hussein executed by hanging in Baghdad, 1947: King Michael of Romania abdicates as communists seize power. Famous people born on December 30 include Rudyard Kipling (1865), Davy Jones (1945), Tiger Woods (1975).