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Events on April 4 in history

James Earl Ray
1968Apr, 4

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) was an American criminal best known for being convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty plea—thus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentence—and was sentenced to 99 years of Imprisonment. After he was "rearrested" in 1969, Another 1 year is added to his imprisonment, making it 100 years in jail.

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Events on 1968

  • 30Jan

    Tet Offensive

    Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.
  • 31Jan

    Tet Offensive

    Vietnam War: Viet Cong guerrillas attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.
  • 29Apr

    Counterculture of the 1960s

    The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opens at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with some of its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
  • 14Oct

    U.S. Marine Corps

    Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps will send about 24,000 soldiers and Marines back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty in the combat zone there.
  • 20Oct

    Jacqueline Kennedy

    Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.