Deaf actress Lauren Ridloff was born on April 6, 1978. image from New. York Times video (see below) She first came to national attention with her role as Connie on the TV series The Walking Dead . Ridloff was crowned Miss Deaf America in 2000 and was nominated for several awards for her leading role in the Broadway play Children of a Lesser God. In 2021, she became Marvel’s first deaf superhero in the movie Eternals . She is a mother to two young children who are also deaf.

It was on this day, April 5, in 1887, when Helen Keller grasped the meaning of the word “water” as spelled out in the manual alphabet with the help of her teacher Anne Sullivan. Her blind and deaf pupil had learned to memorize words but failed to connect the words to their meanings. When Anne took Helen to an old pump house, Helen, she finally understood that everything has a name. Sullivan put Helen’s hand under the stream and began spelling “w-a-t-e-r” into her palm, first