Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. Ray would be captured at London's Heathrow Airport a few months later, convicted of the murder, and charged with a 99 year sentence.
NATO established
Twelve North American and European states sign the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C., formally establishing NATO. In Article 5, the treaty calls for the mutual defense policy whereby an attack on any NATO ally would signify an attack on the entire alliance.
