Almanac - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

TOP TEN LISTS

World's Most Dangerous Animals

Deadliest animals in the world ranked by estimated number of human fatalities per year

Best Selling Musicians

Top selling musicians of all time ranked by estimated number of albums sold

Best Selling Books of All-Time

Best selling novels worldwide ranked by estimated number of copies sold

Fastest Manned Aircraft in the World

Fastest manned aircraft (excluding spacecraft) ranked by top speed

World's Most Practiced Religions

Major religions of the world ranked by estimated number of followers

Worst Genocides of the Twentieth Century

The ten worst genocides of the 20th century listed by dictators responsible; ranked by number of deaths

World's Fastest Land Animals

The fastest land animals in the world ranked by maximum speed

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Today in History

Friday, 30 January 2026

2000

Off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169.

1996

Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, is killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.

Comet Hyakutake is discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.

1995

Workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease.

1994

Péter Lékó becomes the youngest chess grand master.

1989

The American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan closes.

1982

Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner".

1979

Varig 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo.

1972

Bloody Sunday: British Paratroopers kill fourteen unarmed civil rights/anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland.

Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.

FACTOIDS

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime.

Blue Whale

The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived.

Gold

Every ton of seawater contains approximately 1 milligram of dissolved gold.

Mosquito

Studies show that mosquitoes prefer biting blondes to brunettes.

Timelines

People's Republic of China

Afghanistan