Today in History April 5

1566 – Two-hundred Dutch noblemen, led by Hendrick van Brederode, force themselves into the presence of Margaret of Parma and present the Petition of Compromise, denouncing the Spanish Inquisition in the Seventeen Provinces.

1614 – In Virginia, Native American Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe.

1621 – The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to England.

1792 – President George Washington exercises his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power is used in the United States.

1933 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs two executive orders: 6101 to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps, and 6102 “forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates” by U.S. citizens.

1951 – Cold War: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.

1958 – Ripple Rock, an underwater threat to navigation in the Seymour Narrows in Canada is destroyed in one of the largest non-nuclear controlled explosions of the time.

1991 – An ASA EMB 120 crashes in Brunswick, Georgia, killing all 23 aboard including Sen. John Tower and astronaut Sonny Carter.

2010 – Twenty-nine coal miners are killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia.

1472 – Bianca Maria Sforza, Italian wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1510)

1845 – Friedrich Sigmund Merkel, German anatomist and histopathologist (d. 1919)

1856 – Booker T. Washington, African-American educator, essayist and historian (d. 1915)

1908 – Bette Davis, American actress (d. 1989)

1871 – Paolo Savi, Italian geologist and ornithologist (b. 1798)

1964 – Douglas MacArthur, American general (b. 1880)

1975 – Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese general and politician, first president of the Republic of China (b. 1887)

1976 – Howard Hughes, American pilot, engineer, and director (b. 1905)

1982 – Abe Fortas, American lawyer and jurist (b. 1910)

2005 – Saul Bellow, novelist, essayist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1915)