On this day, April 5
1614 Indian Chief Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas married Englishman John Rolfe, a widower, in the Virginia Colony.
1621 The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts on a monthlong return trip to England.
1887 In Tuscumbia, Ala., 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.
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.
2010 An explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine near Charleston, W.Va., killed 29 workers.
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.
2021 The Minneapolis police chief testified that former officer Derek Chauvin had violated departmental policy in pressing his knee against George Floyd’s neck and keeping Floyd down after he had stopped breathing; the testimony came on the sixth day of Chauvin’s murder trial. (Chauvin would be convicted of murder and manslaughter.)
2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian troops of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told the U.N. Security Council that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one set up at Nuremberg after World War II.
Today’s birthdays: Movie producer Roger Corman, 98. Country singer Tommy Cash, 84. Pop singer Allan Clarke (The Hollies), 82. Writer-director Peter Greenaway, 82. Actor Max Gail, 81. Actor Jane Asher, 78. Actor Mitch Pileggi, 72. Hip-hop artist/actor Christopher “Kid” Reid, 60. Rock musician Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), 58. Singer Paula Cole, 56. Actor Krista Allen, 53. Actor Victoria Hamilton, 53. Country singer Pat Green, 52. Rapper-producer Pharrell Williams, 51. Actor Sterling K. Brown, 48.