Today’s Highlights

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King’s death triggered a wave of unrest in cities across the United States that killed 43 people and injured more than 3,000.

On this date

1841: President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office; Harrison’s vice president, John Tyler, was sworn in as president two days later.

1949: 12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C., establishing NATO.

1973: The twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center were officially dedicated.

1991: Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., and six other people, including two children, were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.

2012: A federal judge sentenced five former New Orleans police officers to prison for the deadly Danziger Bridge shootings in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina. (The verdicts in the case were later set aside by the judge, who cited prosecutorial misconduct; the officers pleaded guilty in 2016 to reduced charges.)

Today’s birthdays

Recording executive Clive Davis is 93. Golf Hall of Famer JoAnne Carner is 86. Actor Craig T. Nelson is 81. Actor Christine Lahti is 75. Actor Hugo Weaving is 64. TV host-comic Graham Norton is 62. Actor Robert Downey Jr. is 60. Magician David Blaine is 52. Baseball Hall of Famer Scott Rolen is 50. Hockey Hall of Famer Roberto Luongo is 46.