Around 30 CE?

In Rome, the Emperor Tiberius (r.14-37 CE) had semi-retired to Capri and left his Praetorian Prefect Sejanus in charge of Rome. Sejanus was having an affair with Tiberius' niece, executing those supporting other factions of the imperial family, and gathering power for an apparent coup to become Emperor himself or at least succeed Tiberius. (In 31 Tiberius roused himself enough to send word to Rome ordering Sejanus and his followers executed, so it was not to be)

In China, the usurper/reformer Wang Mang's short-lived Xin Dynasty (9-23 CE) had just been put down. Wang Mang had sought a radical land redistribution program that alienated the wealthy and was unable to deal with invasions from surrounding "barbarian" areas. Liu Xiu, an offshoot of the Han Imperial family, claimed the throne and reestablished the Han Dynasty (the Eastern Han, with a new capital in Luoyang), where they would continue to lead China for another 200 years.

I'm not familiar enough with any other area for specific knowledge of what was going on in the late 20s/early 30s CE.

I kind of disagree with your implication that history books make it seem like nothing else was going on. Any western civ college level textbook is probably going to mention the rise and fall of Sejanus, if nothing else, and more likely than not if it's Rome-specific they'll discuss some of the more...lurid...details that some of the more irresponsible and gossipy of the ancient historians claimed about what exactly Tiberius got up to on his retirement in Capri.

In Newfoundland the Dorset people had a fairly large settlement around what is now Port aux Choix on the Great Northern Peninsula. They have excavated tools and a large amount of harp seal bones from the area showing what one of their major food sources was. They had soap stone lamps, hand sleds, and snow knives meaning they probably made something to an igloo.

At this point the Dorset culture was starting to decline. In Labrador they were replaced by the current Inuit culture and in Newfoundland gave way to the Beothuk.

Within West Mexico it was the height of the shaft tomb tradition/Teuchitlan culture. The people living in around Jalisco were constructing shaft tombs for their dead that ranged anywhere from 2m to 18m deep with one or more chambers in which they placed their dead. Oftentimes they included objects like fine ceramics, lithics, shell jewelry, and hollow and solid ceramic figures that may depict deities, ancestors, or characters from mythology.

On the surface the people were constructing ballcourts, habitation platforms, and large circular temple groups known colloquially as guachimontones. The ballcourts and guachimontones died out with these people around 500-600AD and were replaced with other forms of architecture brought in or adopted from outside the region.

During this time the people made heavy use of terraces for farming and may have even had chinampas in two of the shallow lakes that once occupied the area. They traded very rarely with other cultures with the exception of importing shell. Jade and pachuca obsidian, common trade items elsewhere in Mesoamerica, are very rare. Most of their items are locally made and locally distributed within the region.

All in all, the region is in desperate need of more work as are other areas within Mexico. Unfortunately the more well known cultures attract the majority of interest and funding and leave lesser known groups behind.

In the Pacific Northwest Coast, there is widespread use of the classic NWC Plank house and nucleated sedentary villages. Corresponding technologies like storage systems (boxes, baskets and bags), and salmon harvesting become complex and very productive. Large ocean-going boats are used for travel, warfare and harvesting sea mammals. Throughout the northwest (coast, Plateau and northern Great Basin) projectile points reduce dramatically in size suggesting a transition from atlatl to bow and arrow. In the central Columbia Plateau, huge sites appear with evidence of large numbers of contemporaneous pit houses. Many, if not most, of the culture traits noted at contact for NW groups begin to appear or are established by this time period.