On this day, April 4, in 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally wounded by an assassin’s bullet.
King, 39, was standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine in Memphis, Tenn., where he planned to lead a march in support of sanitation workers.
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The shooter, James Earl Ray, fled from across the street, dropping a package that included a rifle with his fingerprints on them.
Ray was captured in a London airport two months later.
The killing of the civil rights leader set off riots around the country. In D.C., 12 people were killed and 1,200 buildings were burned to the ground during five days of violence.
Ray plead guilty to avoid the death penalty, and died in prison in 1998.
