TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, APRIL 5,
the 95th day of 2021. There are 270 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY: On this date in 2010, an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine near Charleston, West Virginia, killed 29 workers. In a televised rescue, 115 Chinese coal miners were freed after spending eight days trapped in a flooded mine, surviving an accident that had killed 38. In 1621, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts on a monthlong return trip to England. In 1792, President George Washington cast his first veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states. In 1887, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, teacher Anne Sullivan achieved a breakthrough as her 6-year-old deaf-blind pupil, Helen Keller, learned the meaning of the word “water” as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet. In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death after their conviction in New York on charges of conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. In 1955, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill resigned from office for health reasons. Democrat Richard J. Daley was first elected mayor of Chicago, defeating Republican Robert E. Merriam. In 1976, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died in Houston at age 70. In 1986, two American servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque, an incident that prompted a U.S. air raid on Libya more than a week later. In 1987, Fox Broadcasting Co. made its prime-time TV debut by airing the situation comedy “Married With Children” followed by “The Tracey Ullman Show,” then repeating both premiere episodes two more times in the same evening. In 1991, former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, his daughter Marian and 21 other people were killed in a commuter plane crash near Brunswick, Georgia. In 1997, Allen Ginsberg, the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine apologized and officially retracted its discredited article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. In 2019, inspecting a refurbished section of fencing at the Mexican border in California, President Donald Trump declared that “our country is full” and that illegal crossings must be stopped. TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Movie producer Roger Corman is 95. Former U.S. Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell is 84. Country singer Tommy Cash is 81. Actor Michael Moriarty is 80. Pop singer Allan Clarke (The Hollies) and writer-director Peter Greenaway are 79. Actor Max Gail is 78. Actor Jane Asher is 75. Singer Agnetha Faltskog (ABBA) is 71. Actor Mitch Pileggi is 69. Singersongwriter Peter Case is 67. Hip-hop artist/actor Christopher “Kid” Reid is 57. Rock musician Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) is 55. Singer Paula Cole is 53. Actors Krista Allen and Victoria Hamilton are 50. Country singer Pat Green is 49. Rapper-producer Pharrell Williams is 48. Rapper/producer Juicy J is 46. Actor Sterling K. Brown is 45. Country singermusician Mike Eli (The Eli Young Band) is 40. Actor Hayley Atwell is 39. Actor Lily James is 32.