April 5, 1815 -
Mount Tambora erupts in what is now Indonesia, killing 12,000 and spewing eighty cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere at once. The blast is heard more than 900 miles away, and makes summer feel like winter in many parts of the world.
April 5, 1990 -
London physician Raymond Crocket is removed from the medical register after it is shown that he paid for and removed kidneys from Turkish donors brought to England.
April 5, 1994 -
Lead singer and songwriter of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide with a shotgun blast to the head, prompting an unprecedented 24 hour MTV Cobain-athon. Smells like brain splattered against the wall.
April 5, 1997 -
"Allen baby, why so jaded? Have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded?" Allen Ginsberg, Beat poet giant dies.
April 5, 1964
Douglas MacArthur was wrong when he said, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." The controversial five-star general died in his penthouse suite at the Waldorf-Astoria on this date.
It was on this day in 1614 that John Rolfe and Pocahontas got married in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The story of Pocahontas has become an American legend; it's been retold countless times, in history books, novels, poems, TV shows, and movies. Many versions distort the facts by focusing on Pocahontas' relationship with John Smith and ignoring her marriage to John Rolfe. The story goes that Smith was captured by the Powhatans and was about to be clubbed to death when a young Pocahontas ran out and took him in her arms, saving his life (Daffy Duck and Porky Pig even get into this act) — but most historians think that Smith made up most of the story. John Davis, in his 1806 historical novel, The First Settlers of Virginia, added a dramatic romance between Smith and Pocahontas, and that romance has been included in most of the Pocahontas stories since then, including Disney's animated movie that came out in 1995.
But it was John Rolfe who married Pocahontas, after she had been abducted by the colonists. They had hoped they could use her as a bargaining chip with her father, the chief of the Powhatan tribe, to negotiate a peace treaty. The kidnapping didn't work out, but after John Rolfe fell in love with the girl, he got the chief's blessing, and the marriage led to a long period of peace between Jamestown and the
Powhatan Indians.
Now prepare yourself for a shock, some genealogists have claimed that the Bush family (including US presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush) are descended from Pocahontas. This obvious is an impossibility because Duyba lacks any native sense whatsoever.
April 5, 1976,
Today, 32 years ago, as it must to all men, death came to the frail, syphilitic, obsessive-compulsive Howard Robard Hughes.
And so it goes
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