http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Apr 4, 1968: Dr. King is assassinated
Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers' strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.
In the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People's Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracial poor people's march on Washington, and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated African-American sanitation workers. On March 28, a workers' protest march led by King ended in violence and the death of an African-American teenager. King left the city but vowed to return in early April to lead another demonstration.
On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop...And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
One day after speaking those words, Dr. King was shot and killed by a sniper. As word of the assassination spread, riots broke out in cities all across the United States and National Guard troops were deployed in Memphis and Washington, D.C. On April 9, King was laid to rest in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to pay tribute to King's casket as it passed by in a wooden farm cart drawn by two mules.
The evening of King's murder, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect: escaped convict James Earl Ray. A two-bit criminal, Ray escaped a Missouri prison in April 1967 while serving a sentence for a holdup. In May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false identity, which at the time was relatively easy.
On June 8, Scotland Yard investigators arrested Ray at a London airport. He was trying to fly to Belgium, with the eventual goal, he later admitted, of reaching Rhodesia. Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe, was at the time ruled by an oppressive and internationally condemned white minority government. Extradited to the United States, Ray stood before a Memphis judge in March 1969 and pleaded guilty to King's murder in order to avoid the electric chair. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Three days later, he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he was innocent of King's assassination and had been set up as a patsy in a larger conspiracy. He claimed that in 1967, a mysterious man named "Raoul" had approached him and recruited him into a gunrunning enterprise. On April 4, 1968, he said, he realized that he was to be the fall guy for the King assassination and fled to Canada. Ray's motion was denied, as were his dozens of other requests for a trial during the next 29 years.
During the 1990s, the widow and children of Martin Luther King Jr. spoke publicly in support of Ray and his claims, calling him innocent and speculating about an assassination conspiracy involving the U.S. government and military. U.S. authorities were, in conspiracists' minds, implicated circumstantially. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover obsessed over King, who he thought was under communist influence. For the last six years of his life, King underwent constant wiretapping and harassment by the FBI. Before his death, Dr. King was also monitored by U.S. military intelligence, which may have been asked to watch King after he publicly denounced the Vietnam War in 1967. Furthermore, by calling for radical economic reforms in 1968, including guaranteed annual incomes for all, King was making few new friends in the Cold War-era U.S. government.
Over the years, the assassination has been reexamined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the Shelby County, Tennessee, district attorney's office, and three times by the U.S. Justice Department. The investigations all ended with the same conclusion: James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King. The House committee acknowledged that a low-level conspiracy might have existed, involving one or more accomplices to Ray, but uncovered no evidence to definitively prove this theory. In addition to the mountain of evidence against him--such as his fingerprints on the murder weapon and his admitted presence at the rooming house on April 4--Ray had a definite motive in assassinating King: hatred. According to his family and friends, he was an outspoken racist who informed them of his intent to kill Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He died in 1998.
Apr 4, 1949: NATO pact signed
The United States and 11 other nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact aimed at containing possible Soviet aggression against Western Europe. NATO stood as the main U.S.-led military alliance against the Soviet Union throughout the duration of the Cold War.
Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate rapidly in 1948. There were heated disagreements over the postwar status of Germany, with the Americans insisting on German recovery and eventual rearmament and the Soviets steadfastly opposing such actions. In June 1948, the Soviets blocked all ground travel to the American occupation zone in West Berlin, and only a massive U.S. airlift of food and other necessities sustained the population of the zone until the Soviets relented and lifted the blockade in May 1949. In January 1949, President Harry S. Truman warned in his State of the Union Address that the forces of democracy and communism were locked in a dangerous struggle, and he called for a defensive alliance of nations in the North Atlantic—U.S military in Korea.NATO was the result. In April 1949, representatives from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal joined the United States in signing the NATO agreement. The signatories agreed, "An armed attack against one or more of them... shall be considered an attack against them all." President Truman welcomed the organization as "a shield against aggression."
Not all Americans embraced NATO. Isolationists such as Senator Robert A. Taft declared that NATO was "not a peace program; it is a war program." Most, however, saw the organization as a necessary response to the communist threat. The U. S. Senate ratified the treaty by a wide margin in June 1949. During the next few years, Greece, Turkey, and West Germany also joined. The Soviet Union condemned NATO as a warmongering alliance and responded by setting up the Warsaw Pact (a military alliance between the Soviet Union and its Eastern Europe satellites) in 1955.
NATO lasted throughout the course of the Cold War, and continues to play an important role in post-Cold War Europe. In recent years, for example, NATO forces were active in trying to bring an end to the civil war in Bosnia.
Apr 4, 1776: Washington begins march to New York
After the successful siege of Boston, General George Washington begins marching his unpaid soldiers from their headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, toward New York in anticipation of a British invasion, on this day in 1776.
In a letter to the president of Congress, General Washington wrote of his intentions in marching to New York and expressed frustration with Congress for failing to send adequate funds to allow him to pay his troops. Washington wrote, I heartily wish the money had arrived sooner, that the Militia might have been paid as soon as their time of Service expired. The lack of payment left Washington's soldiers with feelings of great uneasiness and they are gone home much dissatisfied and the commander in chief had received severe complaints from the other Troops on the same account. Washington hoped that, upon his arrival in New York, a sufficient sum will be there ready to pay every claim.
The Continental Congress' inability to promptly pay or adequately supply its soldiers persisted throughout the war and continued as a subject of debate following the peace at Yorktown. Two major ramifications of the financial crisis marked the birth of the new nation. First, Congress began to pay soldiers with promises of western lands instead of currency—the same land Congress simultaneously promised to its Indian allies. Secondly, Congress' inability to pay expenses even after winning the war eventually convinced conservative Patriots that it was necessary to overthrow the Articles of Confederation and draft the Constitution of the United States. The new and more centralized Constitution, with its three branches of government, had greater authority to raise funds and an increased ability to manage the new nation's finances. Alexander Hamilton, in his role as the first secretary of the treasury under President George Washington, focused his efforts on mimicking British financial institutions, most significantly in his championship of the First Bank of the United States, as a means of stabilizing the new nation's economy.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1081 - Alexius I Comnenus occupies Byzantine throne
1460 - University of Basle in Swizerland forms
1541 - Ignatius of Loyola becomes 1st superior-general of
Jesuits
1552 - Mauritius van Saksen begins alliance with Karel
Anikita Stroganov
1558 - Czar Ivan IV gives parts of North-Russia to fur
traders
1581 - Francis Drake awarded a Knighthood by Queen Elizabeth
I aboard Golden Hind at Deptford
1588 - Christian IV succeeds Frederik II as king of Denmark
1655 - Battle at Postage Farina, Tunis: English fleet beats
Barbarian pirates
1655 - The miraculous statue entitled the Infant of Prague
is solemnly crowned by command of Cardinal Harrach.
1660 - English king Charles II sends Declaration of Breda
(freedom of religion)
1686 - English king James II publishes Declaration of
Indulgence
1687 - King James II orders his declaration of indulgence
read in church
1716 - Russian & Prussian troops occupy Wismar
1721 - Sir Robert Walpole enters office as the first Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom under King George I.
1737 - Anthony van Heim installed as Dutch pension advisor
1814 - Napoleon abdicates for the first time in favour of
his son.
1818 - Congress decided US flag is 13 red & white
stripes & 20 stars
1828 - Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder
(Amsterdam)
1832 - Charles Darwin aboard HMS Beagle reaches Rio de
Janeiro
Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 1850 -
City of Los Angeles incorporated
1859 - Opera "Dinorah" is produced (Paris)
1859 - Bryant's Minstrels debut "Dixie" in New
York City in the finale of a blackface minstrel show.
1862 - Battle of Yorktown (US Civil War) begins
1862 - US begins Peninsular Campaign aimed at capturing
Richmond during US Civil War
1864 - Skirmish at Elkin's Ford (Little Missouri River),
Arkansas
1865 - Lee's army arrives at Amelia Courthouse
1866 - Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an
assassination attempt in the city of Kiev.
1870 - Golden Gate Park forms by City Order #800
1887 - Susanna Medora Salter elected 1st US woman mayor
(Argonia, KS)
1896 - Announcement of Gold in Yukon
1899 - South Africa all out 35 vs England (Trott 4-19, Haigh
6-11)
1900 - Assassination attempt on Prince of Wales, later
British King Edward VII when shot by Jean-Baptiste Sipido in protest over Boer
war
1900 - British garrison of Reddersberg surrenders to Boer
general De Wet
1902 - Cecil Rhodes scholarship fund forms with $10 million
1905 - Earthquake in Kangra India, kills 20,000
1911 - Hugh Chalmers, automaker, suggests idea of baseball
MVP
1912 - Army fires on striking mine workers at Lena-gold
fields Siberia
1912 - Chinese republic proclaimed in Tibet
1913 - The Greek aviator Emmanuel Argyropoulos becomes the
first pilot victim of the Hellenic Air Force when his plane crashes.
1914 - "Perils of Pauline" shown for 1st time in
LA
1916 - US Senate agrees (82-6) to participate in WW I
Marxist Revolutionary and Russian Leader Vladimir
LeninMarxist Revolutionary and Russian Leader Vladimir Lenin 1917 - Lenin
issues his April Theses calling for Soviets to take power
1918 - Battle of Somme, ends
1918 - Food riot in Amsterdam
1920 - Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem
1921 - Stanley Cup: Ottawa Senators (NHL) beat Vancouver
Millionaires (PCHA), 3 games to 2
1922 - WAAB (Baton Rouge La) becomes 1st US radio station
with "W" calls
1926 - Greek dictator Theodorus Pangalos elected president
1929 - "New Moon" musical opens in London
1929 - 1st AAU Greco-Roman wrestling championships held
1930 - Andrew Sandham makes Test Cricket 1st triple century
1930 - Les Ames makes the 1st Test Cricket century by a
wicketkeeper (149)
1930 - The Communist Party of Panama is founded.
1932 - George Bernard Shaw's "Too True to be
Good," premieres in NYC
1932 - Vitamin C 1st isolated, CC King, Univ of Pittsburgh
1933 - US Dirigible Akron crashes off coast of NJ, 73 die
Playwright George Bernard ShawPlaywright George Bernard Shaw
1937 - 4th Golf Masters Championship: Byron Nelson wins, shooting a 283
1938 - 5th Golf Masters Championship: Henry Picard wins,
shooting a 285
1939 - Faisal II ascends to throne of Iraq
1940 - R Rodgers/Lorenz Hart's "Higher &
Higher," premieres in NYC
1941 - German troops conquer Banghazi
1944 - British troops capture Addis Ababa Ethiopia
1944 - De Gaulle forms new regime in exile, with communists
1944 - Allied Bucharest bombings targeting railroads kills
5,000
1945 - Hungary liberated from Nazi occupation (National Day)
1945 - US forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in
Germany
1945 - US tanks/infantry conquer Bielefeld
1947 - Convention on International Civil Aviation goes into
effect
1947 - Largest group of sunspots on record
1947 - UN's International Civil Aviation Organization forms
1948 - 84-year-old Connie Mack challenges 78-year-old Clark
Griffith to a race from home to 1st base; it ends in a tie
Baseball Legend Connie MackBaseball Legend Connie Mack 1949
- Israel & Jordan sign armistice agreement
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty
signed (Wash DC)
1949 - WKRC TV channel 12 in Cincinnati, OH (ABC) begins
broadcasting
1950 - Dirk Stikker becomes chairman of OES
1951 - Dutch Prince Bernhard visits Juan & Eva Peron in
Buenos Aires
1953 - KFDA TV channel 10 in Amarillo, TX (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1954 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA Carrollton Georgia Golf Open
1955 - British government signs military treaty with Iraq
1956 - Enid Bagnold's "Chalk Garden," premieres in
London
1957 - Heitor Villa-Lobos' 10th Symphony, premieres in Paris
1958 - 1st march against nuclear weapons (Aldermaston
England)
1958 - Eugene Ionesco's "Tueur sans Gages"
premieres in Darmstadt
1958 - The CND Peace Symbol displayed in public for the
first time in London.
1959 - Fed of Mali, consisting of Senegal & French Sudan
(dissolved 1960)
1960 - 32nd Academy Awards - "Ben-Hur," Charlton
Heston & Simone Signoret win
Actor Charlton HestonActor Charlton Heston 1960 - Oscar
awarded to Neth director Bert Haanstra
1960 - Project Ozma begins at Green Bank radio astronomy
center
1960 - Senegal declares independence from France
1964 - "Anyone Can Whistle" opens at Majestic
Theater NYC for 9 performances
1964 - Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love," single goes
#1 & stays #1 for 5 weeks
1965 - Mickey Wright wins LPGA Baton Rouge Golf Invitational
1965 - The first model of the new Saab Viggen fighter
aircraft plane is unveiled.
1966 - Pirate Radio Scotland changes name to Radio Ireland
1966 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1967 - Amsterdam Marines chase out "nozems" of
Central Station
1967 - Dutch De Young government forms
1967 - Marines chase "Nozems" out of Amsterdam
Central Station
1968 - "Education of Hyman Kaplan" opens at Alvin
Theater NYC for 28 perfs
1968 - Apollo 6 launched atop Saturn V; unmanned
1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis,
Tennessee
Clergyman and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King
Jr.Clergyman and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King Jr. 1969 - Denton
Cooley gets 1st temporary artificial heart
1970 - Firestone World Tournament of Champions won by Don
Johnson
1971 - "Follies" opens at Winter Garden Theater
NYC for 524 performances
1971 - Marine clay under houses liquefies, 31 die
(St-Jean-Vianney Quebec)
1972 - 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage begins
operating
1974 - Hank Aaron ties Babe Ruth's home-run record by
hitting his 714th
1975 - 130, killed as USAF plane evacuating Vietnamese
orphans crashes
1975 - Steve Miller is arrested for burning his girlfriend's
clothes
1975 - USAF transport carrying orphans from Saigon crashes
killing 155
1975 - Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill
Gates and Paul Allen.
1976 - 5th Colgate Dinah Shore Golf Championship won by Judy
Rankin
1976 - Seni Pramoj's Democratic Party wins elections in
Thailand
1979 - President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan is
executed.
1980 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1981 - Henry Cisneros becomes 1st Mexican-American mayor
(San Antonio)
Microsoft Founder Bill GatesMicrosoft Founder Bill Gates
1982 - 11th Nabisco Dinah Shore Golf Championship won by Sally Little
1983 - 45th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: NC State
beats Houston 54-52
1983 - 6th space shuttle mission, Challenger 1 launched
1984 - Michael Frayn's "Benefactors" premieres in
London
1984 - Winston Smith in Orwell's "1984" begins his
secret diary
1985 - Tulane University cancels its basketball season
amidst scandal
1986 - Wayne Gretzky sets NHL record with 213th point of
season
1987 - Dow Jones up 69.89 points, ending at record 2,390.34
pts
1988 - 50th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Kansas beat
Oklahoma 83-79
1988 - Eddie Hill becomes the world's first driver to cover
the quarter mile in under 5 seconds
1988 - Largest crowd (55,438) at a season game at Riverfront
(Reds Vs Cards)
1988 - Last broadcast of "Crossroads" on British
TV
1988 - Mets set Opening Day record with 6 HRs
1989 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's last NBA game in Seattle
1989 - NY Yankee Tommy John ties record of playing 26
seasons, his 287th win puts him 19th overall as Yanks beat Twins on opening day
4-2
NHL all-time top scorer Wayne GretzkyNHL all-time top scorer
Wayne Gretzky 1990 - "Marshall Chronicles" premieres on ABC-TV
1990 - Gloria Estefan released from hospital after her
accident
1990 - Security law violator Ivan Boesky is released from
federal custody
1991 - "Lucifer's Child" opens at Music Box
Theater NYC for 28 performances
1991 - Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are
killed when a helicopter collides with their plane over an elementary school in
Merion, Pennsylvania.
1992 - Game 1 of Mayor Challenge - NY Yankees beat NY Mets
6-4 at Yank Stad
1992 - Jury deliberations begin in Noriega case
1992 - Sali Berisha becomes president/Alexander Meksi
premier of Albania
1993 - 12th NCAA Women's Basketball Championship: Texas Tech
beats OH State 84-82
1993 - 5th Seniors Golf Tradition: Tom Shaw
1993 - Trish Johnson wins Las Vegas LPGA at Canyon Gate Golf
Tournament
1993 - Wrestlemania IX at Caesar's Palace Las Vegas, Hulk
Hogan pins Yokozuna
1994 - 1st game played at Jacobs Field, Indians beat
Mariners 4-3 in 11 inn
1994 - 56th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Ark
Razorbacks beats Duke 76-72
1994 - Cubs Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes, hit 3 HRs in 1993
hits 3 HRs on opening
WWF Wrestler Hulk HoganWWF Wrestler Hulk Hogan 1994 - KLM
Saab 340B crashes at Schiphol, 3 killed
1994 - LA Dodger Darryl Strawberry begins substance abuse
treatment
1994 - Largest Opening Day crowd at Yankee Stadium, 56,706
1994 - Netscape Communications founded as Mosaic
Communications
1994 - Tony Curtis undergoes heart-bypass surgery
1994 - Day vs Mets starter Dwight Gooden
1996 - "Inherit the Wind" opens at Royale Theater
NYC for 45 performances
1996 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Austin TX on
KJFK 98.9 FM
1997 - Anaheim Ducks clinch their 1st-ever playoff berth
1997 - Braves officially open Turner Field against Cubs
1997 - DMSP Titan 2 launched
1997 - STS 83 (Columbia 22), launches
1998 - NFL Europe (Formerly WLAF), kicks off season
2002 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign a peace
treaty ending the Angolan Civil War.
2007 - 15 British Royal Navy personnel held in Iran are
released by the Iranian President.
Baseball Player Darryl StrawberryBaseball Player Darryl
Strawberry 2008 - The raid on the FLDS owned ranch called the YFZ Ranch in
Texas, 401 children were taken into custody. 133 woman were taken into state
custody also, the total number of woman and children is 534.
2012 - German Nobel Laureat, Gunter Grass, publishes
controversial poem that claims Israel is plotting to wipe out Iran
2012 - Somalia's National Theatre is struck by a suicide
bomber killing ten people including the presidents of the Somali Olympic
Committee and Football Federation
2012 - Boris Todic, President of Serbia, resigns
2013 - 74 people are killed after an illegally constructed
building collapses in Thane, India
2013 - 9 people have been killed on an axe-murdering rampage
in Chhattisgarh state, India
2013 - Poecilotheria rajaei, a giant tarantula with a 20cm
leg span, is discovered in Sri Lanka
0896 - Formosus ended his reign as pope. 1541 - Ignatius of Loyola became the first superior-general of the Jesuits. 1581 - Francis Drake completed the circumnavigation of the world. 1687 - King James II ordered that his declaration of indulgence be read in church. 1812 - The territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state and will become known as Louisiana. 1818 - The U.S. flag was declared to have 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars and that a new star would be added for the each new state. 1841 - U.S. President William Henry Harrison, at the age of 68, became the first president to die in office. He had been sworn in only a month before he died of pneumonia. 1848 - Thomas Douglas became the first San Francisco public teacher. 1850 - The city of Los Angeles was incorporated. 1862 - In the U.S., the Battle of Yorktown began as Union General George B. McClellan closed in on Richmond, VA. 1887 - Susanna M. Salter became mayor of Argonia, KS, making her the first woman mayor in the U.S. 1902 - British Financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will that would provide scholarships for Americans to Oxford University in England. 1905 - In Kangra, India, an earthquake killed 370,000 people. 1914 - The first known serialized moving picture opened in New York City, NY. It was "The Perils of Pauline". 1917 - The U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to enter World War I on the Allied side. 1918 - The Battle of Somme, an offensive by the British against the German Army ended. 1932 - After five years of research, professor C.G. King, of the University of Pittsburgh, isolated vitamin C. 1945 - Hungary was liberated from Nazi occupation. 1945 - During World War II, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany. 1949 - Twelve nations signed a treaty to create The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 1953 - Fifteen doctors were released by Soviet leaders. The doctors had been arrested before Stalin had died and were accused of plotting against him. 1967 - The U.S. lost its 500th plane over Vietnam. 1967 - Johnny Carson quit "The Tonight Show." He returned three weeks later after getting a raise of $30,000 a week. 1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the age of 39. 1969 - Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first temporary artificial heart. 1971 - Veterans stadium in Philadelphia, PA, was dedicated this day. 1974 - Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth's major league baseball home-run record with 714. 1975 - More than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed just after takeoff from Saigon. 1979 - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president of Pakistan, was executed. He had been convicted of conspiring to murder a political opponent. 1981 - Henry Cisneros became the first Mexican-American elected mayor of a major U.S. city, which was San Antonio, TX. 1983 - At Cape Canaveral, the space shuttle Challenger took off on its first flight. It was the sixth flight overall for the shuttle program. 1984 - U.S. President Reagan proposed an international ban on chemical weapons. 1985 - In Sudan, a coup ousted President Nimeiry and replaced him with General Dahab. 1986 - Wayne Gretzky set an NHL record with his 213th point of the season. 1987 - The U.S. charged the Soviet Union with wiretapping a U.S. Embassy. 1988 - Arizona Governor Evan Mecham was voted out of office by the Arizona Senate. Mecham was found guilty of diverting state funds to his auto business and of trying to impede an investigation into a death threat to a grand jury witness. 1990 - In the U.S., securities law violator Ivan Boesky was released from federal custody. 1991 - Pennsylvanian Senator John Heinz and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, PA. 1992 - Sali Berisha became the first non-Marxist president of Albania since World War II. 1994 - Netscape Communications (Mosaic Communications) was founded. 1995 - U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato ridiculed judge Lance Ito using a mock Japanese accent on a nationally syndicated radio program. D'Amato apologized two days later for the act. 1999 - The Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres played the first major league season opener to be held in Mexico. The Rockies beat the Padres 8-2.
1818 Congress adopted a U.S. flag with one star for each state. 1841 President William Henry Harrison died from pneumonia, one month after his inauguration. 1905 Earthquake in Kangra, India, killed more than 20,000. 1945 The Ohrdruf death camp was liberated from Nazi occupation. 1949 The treaty establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was signed. 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. 1973 The ribbon was cut to open the World Trade Center in New York City. 1979 Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed by the military. 1981 Henry Cisneros became the mayor of San Antonio, Texas: the first Hispanic mayor of a major U.S. city. 1983 Sally Ride became the first U.S. woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/apr04.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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