June 8: On This Day in World History … briefly
Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty.
1968: King’s killer caught in London
A man was arrested in London for the murder of black civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King in April 1967.
Escaped convict James Earl Ray was accused of firing the fatal shots that killed Dr King as he came out onto the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr King was in the city to support a strike of local dustmen.
Profoundly influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi, King insisted that protest should be non-violent, yet since he came to prominence in the civil rights movement in 1955, it was always on the cards that he himself would meet a violent end.
Dr King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. His funeral was held in his birthplace of Atlanta, Georgia, and was attended by 150 000 people. Ray died at age 70 on April 23, 1998, at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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