Today in History: April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis

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Today is Saturday, April 4, the 94th day of 2026. There are 271 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot and killed while standing on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King’s death triggered a wave of unrest in cities across the United States that killed 43 people and injured more than 3,000.

Also on this date:

In 1841, President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office; Harrison’s vice president, John Tyler, was sworn in as president two days later.

In 1949, 12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C., establishing NATO.

In 1973, the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center were officially dedicated.

In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In 1991, Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six other people, including two children, were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.

In 2002, a ceasefire accord was signed by the Angolan government and UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, clearing the way for achieving a final settlement to end a 27-year civil war that devastated much of the southern African nation at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.

In 2012, a federal judge sentenced five former New Orleans police officers to prison for the deadly Danziger Bridge shootings in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina. (The verdicts in the case were later set aside by the judge, who cited prosecutorial misconduct; the officers pleaded guilty in 2016 to reduced charges.)

In 2023, Donald Trump surrendered at a Manhattan courthouse and pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from hush-money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters. He was convicted in May 2024 on all 34 counts but didn’t receive any punishment and is now appealing the verdict.

Today’s Birthdays: Recording executive Clive Davis is 94. Golf Hall of Famer JoAnne Carner is 87. Actor Craig T. Nelson is 82. Actor Christine Lahti is 76. Football Hall of Famer John Hannah is 75. TV writer-producer David E. Kelley is 70. TV host-comic Graham Norton is 63. Actor David Cross is 62. Actor Robert Downey Jr. is 61. Singer Jill Scott is 54. Magician David Blaine is 53. Baseball Hall of Famer Scott Rolen is 51. Hockey Hall of Famer Roberto Luongo is 47. Actor Natasha Lyonne is 47. Actor-comedian Eric André is 43. Actor-singer Jamie Lynn Spears is 35.