TODAY

1614 ÷ Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, marries English tobacco planter John Rolfe in Jamestown, Va.

1862 ÷ Union forces under Gen. George McClellan arrive at Yorktown, Va., and establish siege lines instead of directly attacking the Confederate defenders.

1994 ÷ Alternative grunge rocker Kurt Cobain commits suicide in his Seattle home.

TOMORROW

1896 ÷ The Olympic Games are revived in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.

1917 ÷ Two days after the Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the House of Representative endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I.

1930 ÷ Humorist Will Rogers begins broadcasting "The Will Rogers Program" on CBS radio.

WEDNESDAY

1891 ÷ American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum dies in Bridgeport, Conn.

1954 ÷ President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his famous "domino theory" speech, which dominates U.S. thinking about Vietnam for the next decade.

1994 ÷ In the Rwandan capital of Kigali, violence erupts between the Patriotic Front rebel group, dominated by Rwanda's Tutsi people, and government soldiers and militias, dominated by the Hutus. The Rwandan massacres begin.

THURSDAY

1944 ÷ American writer Barbara Kingsolver is born near Annapolis, Md.

1974 ÷ Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth's record.

1990 ÷ Director David Lynch's surreal series, "Twin Peaks," premieres on ABC ÷ that's some damn fine coffee.

FRIDAY

1859 ÷ On this day in 1859, a 23-year-old Missouri youth name Sameul Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, receives his steamboat pilot's license.

1865 ÷ At Appomattox, Va., Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War.

1881 ÷ After a one-day trial, Billy the Kid is found guilty of murdering the Lincoln County, N.M., sheriff and is sentenced to hang. He later escapes.