Martin Luther King Jr. assassination (1968)

Site: The Lorraine Motel, 450 Mulberry St., Memphis, Tenn.

Then: On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis to support a strike by the city’s black sanitation workers. He was staying in No. 306 of the Lorraine. Jesse Jackson was present as King stepped onto his balcony just after 6 p.m. A sniper, perched across the street, shot King in the head, killing him.

Two months later at Heathrow Airport in London, James Earl Ray was arrested. He entered a guilty plea and was convicted.

Walter Bailey, who owned the Lorraine, maintained rooms 306 and 307 as a shrine to King but the motel’s business declined steadily after the assassination. Worried that the motel would be demolished, a group of locals formed the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation in 1984 and created an educational facility and memorial at the Lorraine. That facility, which opened in 1991, was renamed the National Civil Rights Museum.

Photo: On June 10, 1968, James Earl Ray was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London and extradited to the United States, where he was charged with the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.