On this day ... 5 April

5 April 1887 -- Helen Keller, blind and deaf, learned the meaning of the word "water" from her gifted teacher, Anne Sullivan

5 April 1887 -- British historian Lord Acton wrote, "All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

5 April 1895 -- Oscar Wilde lost the libel case he brought against the Marquess of Queensberry, who accused the Irish writer of homosexuality.

5 April 1923 -- British archaeologist Lord Carnarvon, who had opened Tutankhamen's tomb a few months earlier, died of a mysterious ailment, giving birth to the enduring legend of The Curse of the Pharaoh.

5 April 1960 -- British publisher Peter LLewellyn Davies, who as a child was the inspiration for James Barrie's Peter Pan, committed suicide, the third of the five brothers to die in tragic circumstances.