Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed. The former President of Pakistan had been deposed by a coup d'etat. He was hanged despite international calls to stop the execution.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen establish Microsoft. Microsoft has developed into a multinational corporation, and it is the world's largest software maker by revenue.

Denton Cooley implants the first artificial heart. The machine kept patient Haskell Karp alive for 65 hours, until he received a human heart transplant. His body rejected the transplant and he died on April 8, 1969.

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. The civil rights activist was killed by James Earl Ray. Ray, a segregationist, received a 99-year prison sentence. He died in jail in 1998.

NATO is formed. 12 nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty to establish what is today one of the world's most important military alliances.