November 30

978 – Franco-German war of 978–980: Holy Roman Emperor Otto II lifts the siege of Paris and withdraws. 1707 – Queen Anne's War: The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British Empire and their Creek allies to capture Pensacola, Spanish Florida. 1718 – Great Northern War: King Charles XII of Sweden dies during a siege of the fortress of Fredriksten in Norway. 1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris). 1786 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as Cities for Life Day). 1803 – The Balmis Expedition starts in Spain with the aim of vaccinating millions against smallpox in Spanish America and Philippines. 1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to the French First Republic. 1853 – Crimean War: Battle of Sinop: The Imperial Russian Navy under Pavel Nakhimov destroys the Ottoman fleet under Osman Pasha at Sinop, a sea port in northern Turkey. 1864 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers heavy losses in an attack on the Union Army of the Ohio in the Battle of Franklin. 1872 – The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England. 1916 – Costa Rica signs the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty. 1936 – In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire. 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army crosses the Finnish border in several places and bomb Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the Winter War. 1940 – World War II: Signing of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1940 between the Empire of Japan and the newly formed Wang Jingwei-led Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China. This treaty was considered so unfair to China that it was compared to the Twenty-One Demands.