In 1969 James Earl Ray was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison for the assassination of Martin Luther King. On the 4th of April 1968 Martin Luther King was shot dead by a sniper as he stood on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis. A rifle was recovered and fingerprints found along with eyewitness reports implicated one suspect, escaped convict James Earl Ray. He was caught at Heathrow airport in England trying to use a forged passport and carrying a gun. Ray admitted he was on his way to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) which at the time had a white minority government (led by Ian Smith) that oppressed the black majority and was internationally condemned. He was sent to the United States to face trial. He pleaded guilty to murdering Mr King on the understanding that he would not get the electric chair. Many believed that it was a conspiracy which would come to light during the trial but no evidence of this was presented. Three days into his sentence however James Earl Ray did claim that he had been set up by someone named ‘Raoul’, he tried to retract his plea and have a retrial but this was not granted. He died in prison in1998 leaving many, including King’s widow and children, believing Ray was innocent and possibly set up by the Government. Many governmental departments re-examined evidence and all concluded Ray was guilty of the murder.
In 1820 the first meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society (since its conception on the 12th of January 1820) was held in London, England. The R.A.S. was created to promote the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science and it’s original members included Sir William Herschel (German born British musician and astronomer that discovered Uranus and two of its moons, Titanus and Oberon and two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Mimus).
In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call in history. After receiving his patent license three days ago Bell made the first call to his assistant Watson who was in another room saying "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you". Bell was born in Scotland and later worked in London, England with his dad on a written system to teach speaking to the deaf. After the bells moved to Boston, U.S. in early 1870 he began teaching his fathers machine to teacher’s of the deaf. He fell in love with and married one of his students Mabel Hubbard and became fascinated with the idea of transmitting speech through wires to create a “harmonic telegraph”. His success changed the world and the networks created due his invention ultimately led to the creation of the internet.
