TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Friday, April 5, the 96th day of 2024. There are 270 days left in the year. On this date in:

1614: Pocahontas, daughter of the chief Powhatan, married English tobacco farmer John Rolfe. The marriage created peace between Jamestown and the Powhatan tribe that lasted for several years.

1722: Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen made the first European discovery of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. The island is located 2,300 miles west of Chile in the South Pacific Ocean and is renowned for its ominous statues.

1792: George Washington exercised his first presidential veto of a bill proposing how to divide seats in the House of Representatives. The seats would have favored the Northern states.

1818: South American rebels and Spanish royalists fought the Battle of Maipú for Chilean independence. It was a decisive win over Spain but left 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead.

1839: Robert Smalls, a Civil War hero, businessman and five-term Congressman, was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. He was born into slavery, escaped bondage during the Civil War, returned to Beaufort and became a politician, representing South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representative.

1856: Booker T. Washington, an American educator and reformer, was born in Franklin County, Virginia. He was one of the most influential leaders of Black Americans during the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.

1862: The Battle of Yorktown began as General George McClellan directed his union army to establish siege lines in Yorktown, Virginia.