Clocking in at three hours and 32 minutes, William Wyler’s
Technicolor epic Ben-Hur was the behemoth entry at the
32nd annual Academy Awards ceremony, held on this day
in 1960, at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.

Setting an Oscar record, the film sweeps 11 of the 12
categories in which it was nominated, including Best
Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).

Wyler’s 1959 film was the latest dramatic adaptation of the
mega-bestselling novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,
published in 1880 by Lew Wallace. Wallace, a former
general in the American Civil War, wrote his most
successful novel after experiencing a new awakening
of his Christian faith.

The “Twin Towers” of the World Trade Center officially opened in
New York City after years of delays. The buildings replaced the
Empire State Building as the world’s tallest building. Though they
would only hold that title for a year, they remained a dominant
feature of the city’s skyline and were recognizable the world over
long before they were destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2001. 

Manhattan in 1973.

Sept. 19, 2001: Smoke rises from ground zero of the
collapsed World Trade Center, more than a week after
the terrorist attacks in New York. (AP)

Today, the One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. A 
height of 1,776 feet includes its spire.

On April 4, 1975, at a time when most Americans used typewriters, childhood friends Bill Gates (68) and Paul Allen (1953 – 2018) 
found Microsoft, a company that makes computer software.

Originally based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Microsoft relocated
to Washington State in 1979 and eventually grew into a major multinational technology corporation. In 1987, the year after
Microsoft went public, 31-year-old Gates became the world’s
youngest billionaire.

Gates and Allen started Microsoft—originally called Micro-Soft,
for microprocessors and software—in order to produce software
for the Altair 8800 (below) an early personal computer.

Historians will likely view Bill Gates as a business figure as important to computers as John D. Rockefeller was to oil.

SANDY KOZEL

Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was
fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-
story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation
workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet
struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was
pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He
was only 39 years old.

James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998)

Ray was convicted of the Assassination of Martin Luther
King, Jr.

The Lorraine Motel, now known as the National Civil Rights Museum, where King was assassinated.