This day in history - April 4

[seamusTX]

1614 - Pocahontas and John Rolfe married.

1792 - Pres. George Washington cast the first presidential veto.

1818 - Congress passed the law that defined the pattern of the U.S. flag, which stands to this day.

Before then, a star and stripe were added for each state. By 1818, the flag had 20 stripes, and that scheme had become impractical.

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1841 - President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration. He was the ninth U.S. president, the first to die in office, and had the shortest term to date.

1887 - Anne Sullivan communicated for the first time with Helen Keller by spelling water in the manual alphabet.

Susanna Medora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, the first woman elected to such a position in the U.S.

Kansas was among the pioneer states in allowing women to vote and run for office.

1949 - NATO was established.

1955 - Winston Churchill resigned as prime minister, effectively ending his political career. He remained a member of Parliament but was ill and depressed.

1968 - Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis.

1975 - A U.S. Air Force C-5A Galaxy transport plane carrying 243 Vietnamese orphans plus adult attendants and crew crashed after takeoff from Saigon. At least 130 people died.

Aside from this disaster, Operation Babylift rescued some 2,000 orphans before the fall of South Vietnam, which occurred before the end of April 1975.

- Jim

[stevie_d_64]

2009 - North Korea launched a rocket (against a U.N. resolution) that really didn't perform as expected.