ON THIS DAY ~ 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.

 

1841  President Harrison Dies After One Month in Pffice

Only 31 days after assuming office, William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, dies of pneumonia at the White House.

 

1928  Maya Angelou is Born

Poet and novelist Maya Angelou-born Marguerite Johnson-is born in St. Louis, Missouri.

 

1933  Dirigible Crash Kills 73

On this day in 1933, a dirigible crashes in New Jersey, killing 73 people in one of the first air disasters in history. The Akron was the largest airship built in the United States when it took its first flight in August 1931. In its short life of less than two years, it was involved in two fatal accidents.

1939  Jack Benny Pleads Guilty

Comedian Jack Benny pleads guilty to buying more than $2,000 worth of smuggled gems. Benny was fined $10,000 and given a suspended sentence of a year and a day in jail. George Burns had been fined and given a suspended sentence in January for a similar crime.

 

1949  NATO Established

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is established by 12 Western nations: the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and Portugal. The military alliance, which provided for a collective self-defense against Soviet aggression, greatly increased American influence in Europe.

 

1964  The Beatles Set an all-time Record on the Top 100 chart of Billboard Magazine this Day.

All five of the top songs were by the British rock group. In addition, The Beatles also had the number one album as Meet the Beatles continued to lead all others. The LP was the top album from February 15 through May 2, when it was replaced by The Beatles Second Album. It was estimated at the time that The Beatles accounted for 60 percent of the entire singles record business during the first three months of 1964.

 

The top five singles by The Beatles this day were:
1) Can’t Buy Me Love
2) Twist and Shout
3) She Loves You
4) I Want to Hold Your Hand
5) Please Please Me
6) Suspicion

 

1967  Johnny Carson Quit The Tonight Show. He returned three weeks later with an additional $30,000 a week!

 

1969  Smothers Brothers Canceled

The most popular show on TV, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, is canceled by CBS because the brothers failed to submit an episode to network executives before its broadcast. The show was well known for its irreverent political satire, and the brothers had already engaged in several censorship skirmishes with the network.

Among other controversial content in the show, the network executives objected to the brothers' selection of outspoken, left wing, and antiwar guests, including Pete Seeger, who sang a Vietnam protest song on the air.

Tom and Dick Smothers were popular comedians and singers known for offbeat recordings. Tom played an airhead, Dick his sensible foil, and the pair spoofed everything from religion to apple pie on the show. Regular guests included Steve Martin, Sally Struthers, and Nelson Riddle. The cancellation of the show provoked outrage among free-speech advocates and devoted fans alike.

*The Smothers Brothers were the entertainment on stage when I went to the Strawberry Festival a month ago.

 

 

1971  Veterans stadium in Philadelphia, PA was Dedicated this Day

At the time, it was the largest baseball park in the National League. A total of 56,371 fans could come out to see the Phillies play baseball or the Eagles play football. (Veterans Stadium was demolished on March 21, 2004 and the area where it stood is now a parking lot for the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park sporting complex.)

 

1984  Bob Bell retired as Bozo the Clown on WGN-TV in Chicago, IL.

Bell was an institution in the Windy City since making his first appearance in 1960. Pinto Colvig was the original Bozo.

      Thank you for the Tag Donna!