April 30 in Military History — On This Day

Siege of Fort Zeelandia — Koxinga Takes Taiwan

Koxinga — Zheng Chenggong, the half-Japanese, half-Chinese pirate king and Ming loyalist — landed on Taiwan with 25,000 troops and besieged the Dutch colonial fortress of Fort Zeelandia. The Dutch garrison of barely 2,000 held out for nine months, hoping for reinforcements from Batavia that never came. When the fort finally surrendered in February 1662, Koxinga expelled the Dutch and established Taiwan as a base for the Ming loyalist cause. He died just months later, but his family would hold the island for two more decades.

Koxinga's conquest of Taiwan ended thirty-eight years of Dutch colonial rule and created the last significant Ming loyalist state. It established Taiwan's enduring connection to Chinese political history — the island as a refuge for defeated mainland regimes, a pattern that would repeat in 1949. Koxinga is revered as a national hero in both China and Taiwan.

Full battle details →

⚔️📍 Berlin, Germany1945

Hitler Commits Suicide in the Berlin Bunker

Adolf Hitler shot himself in his underground bunker as Soviet forces fought street by street through Berlin above him. Eva Braun, whom he had married the previous day, took cyanide. Their bodies were burned in the Reich Chancellery garden per Hitler's instructions.

Hitler's suicide ended the Nazi regime he had created and set in motion Germany's unconditional surrender seven days later, concluding the most destructive conflict in human history.

Outcome

Germany surrenders May 8, 1945; WWII in Europe ends