TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

April 9, 1968

Funeral services, private and public, were held for Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Morehouse College in Atlanta, five days after the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. ALSO ON THIS DATE

1682

French explorer Robert de La Salle claimed the Mississippi River Basin for France.

1865

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

1939

Singer Marian Anderson performed a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. after being denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

1942

During World War II, some 75,000 Philippine and American defenders on Bataan surrendered to Japanese troops, who forced the prisoners into what became known as the Bataan Death March; thousands died or were killed en route.

1959

NASA presented its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, 91, died in Phoenix, Arizona.

1977

Spain’s Communist Party was legalized by Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez.