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.

On February 27, 2006, baseball pioneer Effa Manley became the
first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Manley, who
died in 1981, was co-owner of the Newark (New Jersey) Eagles,
a Negro League powerhouse, and a huge advocate for Black
ballplayers and civil rights causes.

Photo of Effa in a Newark Eagles ball cap while being
instructed on how to hold a bat by one of her players.

Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021) 

Aaron played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from
1954 through 1976. Considered one of the greatest baseball
players in history, he spent 21 seasons with the Milwaukee /
Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons
with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL).

At the time of his retirement, Aaron held most of the game’s key
career power-hitting records. He broke the long-standing MLB
record for career home runs held by Babe Ruth and remained
the career leader for 33 years, until Barry Bonds surpassed his
famous total of 755 in 2007. He hit 24 or more home runs every
year from 1955 through 1973 and is one of only two players to
hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.

On February 2, 1876, the National League of Professional
Baseball Clubs, which came to be more commonly known
as the National League (NL), was formed. The American
League (AL) was established in 1901 and in 1903, the first
World Series was held.

The first official game of baseball in the United States took
place in June 1846 in Hoboken, New Jersey.

    
    
    
    
    
   
On this day in 1936, the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elected its first members in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson.