Portal:Japan/Anniversaries/March/March 30

March 30:

Events
 * 1958 - The National Stadium in The Meiji Shrine Outer Garden, which seats 70,000, is completed.
 * 1959 - The Tokyo Lower Court rules the presence of U.S. forces in Japan to be unconstitutional in connection with an incident where seven protestors were arrested for illegally entering the U.S. base at Tachikawa (the Sunaga Incident.) The decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court in December.
 * 1968 - The TV animation Land of the Giants airs for the first time. Land of the Giants started out as a regular installment in the Weekly Shonen Jump, beginning in May 1966, and caused sales of the comic to triple. The TV series was just as successful with ratings of up to 26%. The series ran until September 1971.
 * 1987 - Shirane Zen becomes the first person to cross the Sahara Desert on a 50cc bike.
 * 1987  - Japanese insurance magnate Gōtō Yasuo pays a then record 5.3 billion yen for Vincent van Gogh's painting, Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers. In 1990 he paid 12.5 billion yen for van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet.

Births
 * 1905 - Mikio Oda (d. 1998), triple jumper and academic
 * 1967 - Megumi Hayashibara, voice actress and singer
 * 1967  - Fuyumi Sakamoto, singer
 * 1969 - Kei Takeoka, journalist
 * 1972 - Makoto Nagano, martial artist
 * 1976 - Ayako Kawasumi, voice actress and singer
 * 1986 - Beni, Japanese-American singer-songwriter and actress
 * 1990 - Rola, model and television personality
 * 1994 - Haruka Shimazaki, singer and actress