Is today, April 5 an important day? It really depends on how you look at it.

Years ago, I worked on a project where we featured a front page from The Times for each day of the year. At times there were multiple big events, causing some important stories to be left out. When you view history on a wider timeline than the last century or, so it is easy to find events that added to our story as Americans.

Take for instance, today, April 5, the following things happened:

1614 — Native American Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an English colonist. Her life was cut short when she died of unknown causes in England in 1617.

1788 — Members of the Ohio company waited above Wheeling for provisions to be delivered as they floated down the Ohio River on their way to Marietta. A story on today’s local page describes their trip in detail.

1792 — George Washington, the first president, issued the first veto. The bill was “An Act for an apportionment of Representatives among the several States according to the first enumeration.” He thought it violated the Constitution, so he vetoed it instead of signing it. He would veto just one other bill. His successors have vetoed nearly 2,600.

1862 — The battle of Yorktown began in Virginia. The siege would continue for a month and would eventually end without a clear winner on May 4.

1933 — President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Corps would set up camps all over the country to employ men to improve the nation’s infrastructure and improve the nation’s parks. The program employed 14,000 Ohioans each year.

1936 — A tornado kills 233 people near Tupelo, Miss.

1942 — Adolf Hitler issues Fuhrer Directive 41, which outlined his plan to capture the oil fields in southern Russia.

1949 — A fire in a hospital in Effingham, Ill., killed 77 people and led to nationwide fire code improvements.

1951 — Ethel and Julius Rosenberg receive the death penalty for spying for the Soviet Union.

2010 — Twenty-nine coal miners die after an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. The incident was the nation’s worst mine accident since 1970.

There are of course thousands of events that happen on every date. Look hard enough and you can likely find incredible triumphs and terrible tragedies just about every day of the year. Regardless, the sun will come up tomorrow, April 6, the anniversary of the United States declaring war on Germany in 1917.

Art Smith is online manager of The Marietta Times, he can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com