TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, APRIL 4,
the 94th day of 2022. There are 271 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee; his slaying was followed by a wave of rioting (Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago were among cities particularly hard hit). James Earl Ray later pleaded guilty to assassinating King, then spent the rest of his life claiming he’d been the victim of a setup. In 1841, President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by his son Tad, visited the vanquished Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, where he was greeted by a crowd that included former slaves. In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi concentration camp Ohrdruf in Germany. Hungary was liberated as Soviet forces cleared out remaining German troops. In 1973, the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center were officially dedicated. (The towers were destroyed in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.) In 1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied Babe Ruth’s home-run record by hitting his 714th round-tripper in Cincinnati. In 1975, more than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crash-landed shortly after takeoff from Saigon. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque. In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage. (It was destroyed in the disaster of January 1986.) In 1991, Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., and six other people, including two children, were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania. In 2011, yielding to political opposition, the Obama administration gave up on trying avowed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian federal courts, and said it would prosecute them instead before military commissions. TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Recording executive Clive Davis is 90. Author Kitty Kelley is 80. Actor Craig T. Nelson is 78. Actor Walter Charles is 77. Actor Christine Lahti is 72. Country singer Steve Gatlin (The Gatlin Brothers) is 71. Writer-producer David E. Kelley is 66. Actor Constance Shulman is 64. Actor Phil Morris is 63. Actors Lorraine Toussaint and Hugo Weaving are 62. Rock musician Craig Adams (The Cult) is 60. Talk show host/comic Graham Norton is 59. Actor David Cross is 58. Actor Robert Downey Jr. is 57. Actor Nancy McKeon is 56. Actor Barry Pepper is 52. Magician David Blaine and singer Kelly Price are 49. R&B singer Andre Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 48. Actor James Roday is 46. Actor Natasha Lyonne is 43. Actors Eric Andre and Amanda Righetti are 39. Actor-singer Jamie Lynn Spears is 31.