April 5 Birthday
On April 5, 1614, Pocahontas married John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia. She had been captured by the English in 1613 and converted to Christianity, taking the name Rebecca. The marriage was diplomatic — it ended the First Anglo-Powhatan War and established several years of peace. She traveled to England in 1616 and was displayed as a curiosity to the court. She died at Gravesend in 1617, at about twenty-one, probably of respiratory disease. She never returned home. Her son, Thomas Rolfe, remained in England and later returned to Virginia, where his descendants became prominent colonists. The Disney version of her story — in which she falls in love with John Smith — is fiction. Smith was thirty when they met; she was eleven. George Washington cast the first presidential veto on this day in 1792. Congress had passed a bill reapportioning House seats based on the first census. Washington thought the formula unfairly favored northern states. He consulted his cabinet — Jefferson supported the veto, Hamilton opposed it. Washington vetoed the bill. Congress did not override. Washington would veto only two bills in his presidency. The veto power was rarely used by early presidents — Washington twice, Adams zero, Jefferson zero. It was not until Andrew Jackson, who vetoed twelve bills, that the veto became a tool of presidential policy. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death on April 5, 1951, for conspiring to commit espionage by passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The evidence against Julius was substantial — he was a Soviet courier who recruited other spies. The evidence against Ethel was thin — she was charged largely to pressure Julius to confess. Neither did. They were executed on June 19, 1953, in the electric chair at Sing Sing. They were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. Their sons, Michael and Robert, were adopted by Abel Meeropol, who wrote "Strange Fruit." Decrypted Soviet cables later confirmed Julius's guilt but cast doubt on Ethel's role. Bette Davis, born this day in 1908, was fired by Warner Bros. in 1937 for breach of contract. She had tried to break her contract to make better films in England. She lost the lawsuit but won the war — Warner Bros. began giving her better roles. She made 124 films and was nominated for ten Oscars, winning two. Spencer Tracy, born two years earlier in 1900, won two consecutive Best Actor Oscars — the first person to do so. People born on April 5 fall under the zodiac sign of Aries. The birthstone is Diamond and the birth flower is Daisy. Historical events on April 5 include 1614: Pocahontas marries English tobacco planter John Rolfe, 1792: George Washington casts first presidential veto, 1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sentenced to death for espionage. Famous people born on April 5 include Spencer Tracy (1900), Bette Davis (1908), Colin Powell (1937).