On This Day in History - April 5th - Almanac

Today is Friday, April 5, the 96th day of 2024 with 270 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Mars, Saturn and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in 1588; Elihu Yale, namesake of Yale University, in 1649; English physician Joseph Lister, who introduced antiseptic surgery, in 1827; educator Booker T. Washington in 1856; physicist Hedwig Kohn in 1887; actor Spencer Tracy in 1900; actor Bette Davis in 1908; actor Gregory Peck in 1916; singer/actor Gale Storm in 1922; filmmaker Roger Corman in 1926 (age 98); impressionist Frank Gorshin in 1933; former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in 1937; actor Michael Moriarty in 1941 (age 83); actor Max Gail in 1943 (age 81); actor Jane Asher in 1946 (age 78); astronaut Judith Resnik in 1949; musician Agnetha Faltskog (ABBA) in 1950 (age 74); actor Mitch Pileggi in 1952 (age 72); Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera in 1955 (age 69); rapper Christopher Reid (Kid 'n Play) in 1964 (age 60); musician Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) in 1966 (age 58); musician Paula Cole in 1968 (age 56); actor Victoria Hamilton in 1971 (age 53); singer Pharrell Williams in 1973 (age 51); actor Sterling K. Brown in 1976 (age 48); actor Hayley Atwell in 1982 (age 42); actor Lily James in 1989 (age 35).

On this date in history:

In 1614, Pocahontas, daughter of a chief, married English tobacco planter John Rolfe in Jamestown, Va. It was a marriage that ensured peace between the settlers and the Powhatan Indians for several years.

In 1768, the first U.S. Chamber of Commerce was founded in New York City.

In 1792, President George Washington exercised veto power, the first time it was done in the United States.

In 1933, Executive Order 6101 establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps was issued by President Franklin Roosevelt. The public work relief program would run from 1933 to 1942 and provide employment for unemployed and unmarried men as part of the New Deal.

In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death in New York for stealing atomic secrets for the Soviet Union. They were executed on June 20, 1953.

In 1955, following rumors of failing health, Winston Churchill resigned as prime minister of the United Kingdom.

In 1976, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died of kidney failure during a flight from Acapulco, Mexico, to Houston. He was 71.

In 1991, former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, and 22 others were killed in a commuter plane crash in Brunswick, Ga.

In 1992, Sam Moore Walton, founder of Walmart, died of cancer at 74.

In 1994, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain killed himself at his home in Seattle. He was 27. It would be three days before his body was discovered.

In 1999, Russell Henderson, one of two men charged in the October 1998 beating death of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, pleaded guilty and was given two life prison sentences. The second man, Aaron McKinney, who delivered the fatal blows, also received two life terms.

In 2000, Lee Petty, the winner of the first Daytona 500 and a pioneer of a NASCAR racing family, died at a North Carolina hospital from complications of an abdominal aneurysm. He was 86.

In 2010, an explosion in a coal mine near Montcoal, in West Virginia's Raleigh County, killed 29 workers.

In 2016, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to mandate six weeks of fully paid leave for new parents.

In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the U.N. Security Council to act decisively to help Ukrainians and end the occupation and violence against civilians by Russian forces.

A thought for the day: "We all should rise above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness and selfishness." -- American author/educator Booker T. Washington