Today's Highlight in History:
On April 5, 1792, George Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.
On this date:
In 1614, Pocahontas, daughter of the leader of the Powhatan tribe, married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia. (Having converted to Christianity, she went by the name Lady Rebecca.)
In 1621, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, Mass., on a return trip to England.
In 1887, British historian Lord Acton wrote in a letter, "All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
In 1887, in Tuscumbia, Ala., teacher Anne Sullivan achieved a breakthrough as her blind and deaf pupil Helen Keller learned the meaning of the word "water" as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet.
In 1895, Oscar Wilde lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who'd accused the writer of homosexual practices.
In 1908, actress Bette Davis was born in Lowell, Mass.; conductor Herbert von Karajan was born in Salzburg, Austria.
In 1975, nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek died at age 87.
In 1976, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died in Houston at age 70.
In 1986, an American soldier and a Turkish woman were killed in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque, an incident which prompted a U.S. air raid on Libya more than a week later.
In 1988, a 15-day hijacking ordeal began as gunmen forced a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet to land in Iran.
Ten years ago: In Leeds, England, environment chiefs from the world's top eight industrialized nations announced plans to curb the smuggling of hazardous waste, endangered species and substances that damage the ozone layer.
