Today in History: April 23

1998: James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., died in prison in Nashville, Tennessee.

1993: On this day in 1993, after a long history of foreign rule and decades of war, the small East African country of Eritrea began three days of voting on a referendum to make official its independence from Ethiopia.

1985: Coca-Cola announced that it was changing its formula and introduced New Coke.

1969: Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death (later reduced to a life sentence) for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

1954: Hank Aaron hit the first of his 755 home runs.

1906: Russian Tsar Nicholas II promulgated the Fundamental Laws, which marked the end of unlimited autocracy but fell short of the reforms promised in the October Manifesto.

1858: German physicist Max Planck, who originated quantum theory, was born in Kiel.

1791: James Buchanan, the 15th U.S. president, was born near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.

1616: Playwright William Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon, England.

1016: Upon the death of King Ethelred II of England, his son claimed the throne as Edmund II.