Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, dying at age 39 later that evening at St. Joseph's Hospital. James Earl Ray, an escaped Missouri State Penitentiary convict, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport on June 8 and extradited; on March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.