Today in History: October 30, Gerald Ford tells New York City ‘Drop Dead’

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Today in history:Also on this date:Today’s Birthdays:

Today is Thursday, Oct. 30, the 303rd day of 2025. There are 62 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Oct. 30, 1975, the New York Daily News ran the headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” a day after President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. The city ultimately evaded bankruptcy despite weathering a severe fiscal crisis.

Also on this date:

In 1912, Vice President James S. Sherman, running for a second term of office with Republican President William Howard Taft, died six days before Election Day. (Taft was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the election).

In 1938, the radio play “The War of the Worlds,” starring Orson Welles, aired on the CBS Radio Network. The broadcast panicked some listeners in its portrayal of an invasion by Martians.

In 1961, the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb, the “Tsar Bomba,” with a force estimated at about 50 megatons (over 3,500 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima). It remains the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.

In 1972, an Illinois Central Gulf commuter train was struck by another train on Chicago’s South Side, killing 45 people and injuring about 350.

In 1974, Muhammad Ali, 32, knocked out George Foreman, 25, in the eighth round of a scheduled 15-round bout known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” in Kinshasa, Congo (then Zaire), to regain his world heavyweight title.

In 1995, voters in the province of Quebec narrowly defeated a referendum that called for sovereignty with a new economic and political partnership with Canada.

In 2005, the late Rosa Parks was the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda; Parks became a civil rights icon by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white passenger in 1955.

In 2018, gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was found beaten to death at a federal prison in West Virginia; the 89-year-old former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant had been transferred there just hours earlier.(Three inmates entered plea deals and were convicted in Bulger’s killing).

In 2023, the United Auto Workers said it reached a tentative deal with General Motors, capping a whirlwind few days in which GM, Ford and Stellantis agreed to terms that would end the union’s targeted strikes over six week.(UAW members later ratified the contracts).