Martin Luther King Jr. born | January 15, 1929
By: HISTORY
Another day isn't just another day.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist minister. King received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 helped organize the first major protest of the African American civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and the movement gained momentum.
Martin Luther King Jr. - Call to Activism
On the night of January 27, 1956, when he was just 27 years old, Martin Luther King Jr. received a threatening phone call that would cause his life to change forever.
2:20m watch
A powerful orator, King appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and Northern whites. In 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph led the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; the event's grand finale was King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial to hear the stirring speech.
In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. Later that year, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize (in 2014 Malala Yousafzai became the youngest to receive the prize at age 17). In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
Timeline
Also on This Day in History
Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 15th
1559 -- Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England
Two months after the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary I of England, Elizabeth Tudor, the 25-year-old daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, is crowned Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey in London. The two half-sisters, both daughters of Henry VIII, had a stormy relationship during Mary's five-year reign. Mary, who was brought up […]
1777 -- Vermont declares independence from colony of New York
Having recognized the need for their territory to assert its independence from both Britain and New York and remove themselves from the war they were waging against each other, a convention of future Vermonters assembles in Westminster and declares independence from the crown of Great Britain and the colony of New York on January 15, […]
1831 -- "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is finished
On January 15, 1831, Victor Hugo finishes writing Notre Dame de Paris, also known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Distracted by other projects, Hugo had continually postponed his deadlines for delivering the book to his publishers, but once he sat down to write it, he completed the novel in only four months. Hugo, the […]
1870 -- First appearance of the Democratic Party donkey
On January 15, 1870, the first recorded use of a donkey to represent the Democratic Party appears in Harper's Weekly. Drawn by political illustrator Thomas Nast, the cartoon is entitled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion." The jackass (donkey) is tagged "Copperhead Papers," referring to the Democrat-dominated newspapers of the South, and the dead […]
1919 -- Boston shocked by deadly molasses flood
Fiery hot molasses floods the streets of Boston on January 15, 1919, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. The molasses burst from a huge tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol Company building in the heart of the city. The United States Industrial Alcohol building was located on Commercial Street near North End […]
1919 -- Opposition leaders are murdered in failed coup in Berlin
A coup launched in Berlin by a group of radical socialist revolutionaries is brutally suppressed by right-wing paramilitary units from January 10 to January 15, 1919; the group's leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, are murdered. Germany's long, ultimately losing struggle on the battlefield—culminating in the signing of the armistice in November 1918—and dismal conditions […]
1951 -- The "Witch of Buchenwald" is sentenced to prison
Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany. Ilse Koch was nicknamed the "Witch of Buchenwald" for her extraordinary sadism. Born in Dresden, Germany, Ilse, a librarian, married SS. Col. Karl Koch in 1936. Colonel Koch, a man with his own […]
1967 -- Packers beat Chiefs in first Super Bowl
On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)'s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. Founded in 1960 as a rival to the NFL, the AFL was still […]
1968 -- The Jeannette Rankin Brigade: 5,000 women march against Vietnam War
On January 15, 1968, an 87-year-old Jeannette Rankin leads 5,000 women—nicknamed the "Jeannette Rankin Brigade"—in a march in Washington, D.C. against the Vietnam War. The march is a capstone of Rankin's long career as a suffragist, pacifist and the first woman elected to U.S. Congress. Inspired by Mahatma Gahndi, Rankin organized a group of 5,000 women […]
1972 -- "American Pie" hits #1 on the pop charts
On January 15, 1972, "American Pie,", an epic poem in musical form that has long been etched in the American popular consciousness, hits #1 on the Billboard charts. The story of Don McLean's magnum opus begins almost 13 years before its release, on a date with significance well-known to any American who was alive and […]
1981 -- "Hill Street Blues" begins run
On January 15, 1981, Hill Street Blues, television's landmark cops-and-robbers drama, debuts on NBC. When the series first appeared, the police show had largely been given up for dead. Critics savaged stodgy and moralistic melodramas, and scoffed at lighter fare like Starsky and Hutch. Created by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, Hill Street Blues invigorated […]
1990 -- Soviets send troops into Azerbaijan
In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict. The fighting—and the official Soviet reaction to it—was an indication of the increasing ineffectiveness of the central Soviet government in maintaining control in the Soviet republics, and of Soviet leader Mikhail […]
2001 -- Wikipedia launches
Less than a year after the unsuccessful launch of Nupedia—an online free encyclopedia—its successor, Wikipedia, goes live on January 15, 2001. As of January 2024, Wikipedia has more some 6.8 million articles in more than 300 languages. Nupedia, which launched in 2000, marked a failed attempt by entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosopher and internet project […]
2009 -- Pilot Sully Sullenberger performs "Miracle on the Hudson"
On January 15, 2009, a potential disaster turns into a heroic display of skill and composure when Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III safely lands the plane he was piloting on New York City's Hudson River after a bird strike caused its engines to fail. David Paterson, governor of New York at the time, dubbed the […]
Be a good human. Grossly derogatory comments, blatantly inflammatory comments, excessive trolling, mean-spirited taunting and insults, scamming, spamming, and off topic comments may be removed in compliance with the site's Terms of Service and the Code of Conduct. The moderators have the final word.
Tags
Who is online
126 visitors
Doesn't the next step in the journey depend upon the last step taken?
Dr. King. . . wherever you are. . . Happy Birthday to your memory!
A great American hero.