30 August

In 30 BC Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide, according to legend via a bite by an asp (snake). This powerful queen's life, during which her lovers included both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, inspired numerous stories, plays (including Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw), books, operas and cantatas (among others by Samuel Barber, Jules-Émile-Frédéric Massenet, Domenico Cimarosa and Hector Berlioz) and movies (of which the most famous was the 1963 version starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison). 

On 30 August 1959, the first Austin Mini 7 went on sale for £497- one of the cheapest saloon cars available at the time. The Mini (as it was renamed in 1962) went on to become the most popular British-made car ever made. 

The Euro Currency was formally Introduced on August 30, 2001 and came into operation the following year. 

On this day in 1751, the German-born British composer George Frideric Handel  finished his  last oratorio Jephtha (libretto: Rev. Thomas Morell.)

Ernest Rutherford

The British physicist and chemist  Ernest Rutherford, 1^st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was born on 30 August 1871 near Nelson, New Zealand.  He was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize for his contributions to radiation chemistry. Rutherford became a mentor to many big names in nuclear physics, including Niels Bohr, James Chadwick, Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Geiger, John Cockroft and Ernest Walton.  He is  buried in Westminster Abbey near Isaac Newton, and the element rutherfordium was named after him.

Other birthdays today include novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 - author of among others Frankenstein),Chinese-American composer Chen Yuan Lin (1957- his film scores include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) , the Greek pianist Dimitris Sgouros (1969) and the  American entrepreneur Warren Buffett (1930).

On 30 August 1984 the Space Shuttle Discovery took off on its maiden voyage. It was retired on 9 March 2011, after 39 missions and having spent a whole year (365 days) in total in orbit. Its highlight missions included the Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (1990) and the 100th Space Shuttle mission (2000).  The photograph below shows the space shuttles Enterprise (left) and Discovery 'meet' on 19 April 2012 at a welcoming ceremony at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Centre. Discovery  will remain on permanent display at the Centre's  James S. McDonnell Space Hangar.  Enterprise will be on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City. 

Photo:Carolyn Russo, National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution