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.

Being shown is one of the oldest books in existence, the
Crosby-Schoyen Codex.

One of the oldest Christian liturgical books is expected to sell
for more than $2.6 million at an auction in London.

The Crosby-Schøyen Codex was written on Egyptian papyrus
from around 250-350 A.D., and produced in one of the first
monasteries.

"It’s right at that period, that transitional period, when papyrus
scroll starts turning into codex form," Eugenio Donadoni,
Christie’s Senior Specialist, Medieval and Renaissance
Manuscripts, told Reuters. "So, books as we know them
today. What we have in this book is the earliest known texts
of two books of the Bible."

Fox News

On April 3, 1860, the first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse
and rider relay teams, simultaneously left St. Joseph, Missouri,
and Sacramento, California. Ten days later, on April 13, the
westbound rider and mail packet completed the approximately
1,800-mile journey and arrived in Sacramento, beating the
eastbound packet’s arrival in St. Joseph by two days and setting
a new standard for speedy mail delivery.

Actor, writer and comedian Joe Flaherty, who was best known
for his work on the sketch show SCTV and Freaks and Geeks,
passed away Monday after a brief illness.

Flaherty on SCTV.

On That ‘70s Show, he portrayed Bryan (Mountie) in
“Canadian Road Trip.” 

Farm Film Celebrity Blow-Up: Hosts Big Jim McBob (John Candy) and Billy Sol Hurok (Joe Flaherty).