April 4
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Featured Event
Julian Wasser
Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was supporting striking sanitation workers. While in Memphis, he delivered his famous Mountaintop Speech, in which he invoked the strike as one of many fights for freedom and economic justice for all, regardless of race. The next day, the civil rights leader was shot and killed while he stood on his hotel balcony. Many responded to news of King’s murder with anguish and fury, and over the next several days riots and violence broke out in multiple American cities. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© Louis Monier—Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
French writer and film director Marguerite Duras, internationally known for her screenplays for Hiroshima mon amour and India Song and winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt for her novel L’Amant, was born this day in 1914.
Famous Birthdays
More on April 4
White House photograph by Shealah Craighead/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-DIG-ppbd-00608)
2023
In a Manhattan court, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush-money scheme during the 2016 presidential campaign. It marked the first time in American history that a former U.S. president faced criminal charges in court.
Globe Photos/ZUMA Press/Alamy
2013
American film critic Roger Ebert, who was the first person to receive a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism (1975), died at the age of 70. [Test your knowledge of films.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2002
After 27 years of fighting, the government of Angola and UNITA signed a cease-fire agreement that ended the country’s civil war. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Africa.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2000
The government of South Korea ordered some 85 percent of the country’s livestock markets closed in an attempt to end an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that had struck Asian livestock. [Take our quiz about viruses, bacteria, and diseases.]
© JEFF CHRISTENSEN —AFP/Getty Images
1975
Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft, which went on to become the world’s largest personal-computer software company. [Sort fact from fiction in our computer quiz.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1969
American surgeon Denton Cooley implanted the first complete artificial heart in a human; several days later the patient received a donor heart but died shortly thereafter. [Take our quiz about medical firsts.]
© 1959 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
1960
The biblical epic Ben-Hur became the first film to win 11 Academy Awards; it notably received Oscars for best picture, director (William Wyler), and lead actor (Charlton Heston). [How much do you know about the Academy Awards?]
United Nations Photograph
1959
In West Africa the Mali Federation, a short-lived union between the autonomous territories of the Sudanese Republic and Senegal, led by Léopold Senghor, came into being. [Test your knowledge of African leaders.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Patrick O'Neill Riley
1958
The peace symbol, designed by Gerald Holtom, made its first public appearance, displayed on signage during a protest staged by the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1949
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed, the founding member countries of this military alliance being Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about world organizations.]
© Ken Charnock/Getty Images
1928
Maya Angelou—a poet, writer, and actress known for her powerful memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—was born in St. Louis, Missouri. [Take our famous authors quiz.]
Eugene Adebari—REX/Shutterstock.com
1913
Muddy Waters, a blues guitarist and singer who played a major role in creating the modern rhythm-and-blues style, was born in Mississippi (though Waters himself often said he had been born in 1915). [Sort fact from fiction in our musical origins quiz.]
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
1862
In the American Civil War, Union forces under General George B. McClellan began the unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. [Test your knowledge of which side won which Civil War battles.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1850
With a population totaling about 1,600, Los Angeles was incorporated as an American city.
Everett Historical/Shutterstock
1841
After serving for only one month, William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office. [Watch an overview of William Henry Harrison’s life and presidency.]
Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.
1785
Bettina von Arnim, one of the outstanding women writers in modern German literature, was born in Frankfurt am Main. [How much do you know about German literature?]