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• Today is Thursday, April 4, the 94th day of 2013. There are 271 days left in the year.
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• Today's Highlight in History:
• On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death as he stood on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. (James Earl Ray later pleaded guilty to assassinating King, then spent the rest of his life claiming he'd been the victim of a setup.)
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• On this date:
• In 1818, Congress decided the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.
• In 1841, President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.
• In 1850, the city of Los Angeles was incorporated.
• In 1859, "Dixie" was performed publicly for the first time by Bryant's Minstrels at Mechanics' Hall in New York.
• In 1912, China proclaimed a republic in Tibet, a move fiercely opposed by Tibetans.
• In 1933, the Navy airship USS Akron crashed in severe weather off the New Jersey coast with the loss of 73 lives.
• In 1949, 12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C.
• In 1960, Elvis Presley recorded "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" in Nashville for RCA Victor.
• In 1973, the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center were officially dedicated. (The towers were destroyed in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.)
• In 1975, more than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crash-landed shortly after takeoff from Saigon.
• In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage. (It was destroyed in the disaster of January 1986.)

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